Pivit

About Pivit

Pivit, operating under the corporate name Binary Event Network, Inc., was a venture-backed startup based in New York that developed a platform for turning real-world events into interactive games. The company was established in 2011 by Gregory W DePetris and Thomas Little. The founding team also included John McNamara and Jason Finch, who, along with DePetris, were instrumental in creating the earlier and well-known financial prediction marketplace, Intrade. Their experience with Intrade directly informed the concept behind Pivit, aiming to apply the principles of prediction markets to a broader, non-monetary context.

The firm's core offering was a web and mobile application that leveraged data science to calculate the probability of a specific event occurring. It then presented users with a simple proposition: predict whether that probability would increase or decrease over time. This model transformed event tracking, from political elections to sports, into an engaging game. By participating, users were connected to issues they cared about, while the platform aggregated these predictions to generate real-time public consensus data. This data was positioned as a unique and valuable asset, effectively harnessing the wisdom of the crowd to create new forecasting insights. The business did not involve monetary betting; instead, it focused on ranking participants to identify top predictors.

Pivit successfully raised capital to fund its operations, securing a Series A round in February 2013 and attracting investments from notable venture capital firms such as DRW Venture Capital and WorldQuant Ventures LLC. The platform officially launched in late 2014, initially focusing on the U.S. midterm elections to showcase its capabilities. Despite its foundation and backing, Pivit eventually ceased operations.