# Nan Wang

> Nan Wang is the co-founder and CEO of Sleeper, the fantasy sports platform built like a group chat that grew to millions of daily users almost entirely by word of mouth. He left a private equity career in Hong Kong to build a sports product that is social at its core, turning a 20-year fantasy league among childhood friends into a company backed by a16z, General Catalyst, and athletes like Kevin Durant and Klay Thompson. Under Wang, Sleeper expanded from fantasy football into the NBA and fantasy esports, drawing an unusually large share of women and casual fans to a category long dominated by ESPN and Yahoo.

- **Role:** Co-Founder & CEO at Sleeper
- **Organizations:** Sleeper, Neuberger Berman, Oak Street Acorn Program
- **From:** Rural village near Chengdu, Sichuan, China
- **Nationality:** American (born in China)
- **Education:** Dartmouth College
- **Known for:** Built Sleeper to 2-3 million daily active users, among the fastest organically growing sports apps in the U.S., Grew the user base largely through word of mouth with near-zero ad spend, Reached a roughly 30% female user base, versus a ~10% industry average

## Career timeline

- **pre-2017** — Helped build Neuberger Berman's private equity business across Asia-Pacific, based in Hong Kong
- **2017** — Co-founded Sleeper with Weixi Yen and Ken Wang; closed ~$2M seed round led by Birchmere Ventures with Expa
- **2019** — Raised $5.3M Series A led by General Catalyst
- **2020** — Raised $20M Series B led by a16z, with Twitch CEO Kevin Lin, Kevin Durant, Klay Thompson, Baron Davis, JuJu Smith-Schuster; added fantasy esports as LCS named Sleeper its official platform
- **2021** — Raised $40M Series C; total funding reached ~$67.3M
- **2022** — Added roughly 1 million daily active users with virtually no ad spend

## Achievements

- Built Sleeper to 2-3 million daily active users, among the fastest organically growing sports apps in the U.S.
- Grew the user base largely through word of mouth with near-zero ad spend
- Reached a roughly 30% female user base, versus a ~10% industry average
- Made Sleeper the official fantasy platform of the League of Legends Championship Series (LCS)
- Raised about $67.3M from a16z, General Catalyst, and athlete-investors including Kevin Durant and Klay Thompson
- Founded the Oak Street Acorn Program, a nonprofit providing college-access mentorship to underprivileged children in Boston

## Latest updates

- **2021-09** — Sleeper closed a $40M Series C, bringing total funding to roughly $67.3M.
- **2022** — Sleeper added about 1 million daily active users with virtually no ad spend.

## Links

- Website: https://sleeper.com
- LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/nan-wang-8916b03
- Twitter/X: https://x.com/SleeperNan
- YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PCb72QqPVpg
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nwang06/

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Profile page: https://yespress.io/nan-wang
Published by YesPress — https://yespress.io
Last updated: 2026-06-10