He made PrizePicks a fantasy sports behemoth. Now he’s moving into music.

After building a fantasy sports giant now valued in the billions, Atlanta born-and-bred entrepreneur Adam Wexler is beginning his next chapter. This time, he’s returning to where he initially began his career: the digital music business.

Wexler, who cofounded PrizePicks and exited the company last year, is resurrecting the first startup he founded right out of college and reorienting it for the modern era. The Hidden Jams, as it is now called, is a nonprofit creating a platform designed to help people more easily discover new music. It sorts music catalogs based on listener participation rather than promotional spending.

Wexler, 41, was named CEO and executive chairman of The Hidden Jams, and is currently seeding the platform as it begins its beta testing phase. It’s based out of Athens, the home of his alma mater, the University of Georgia, and a city famed for R.E.M., the B-52s and other Southern rock bands.

In a world where fan tastes have become increasingly pay-to-play and driven by algorithms, The Hidden Jams is designed to serve as a real-time signal of fan interest.

“The problem we were trying to solve [years ago], which is sorting all these catalogs out there, has gotten exponentially greater,” Wexler said. “There’s so much noise out there and many more songs that have been released.”

Here’s how it works: fans log into the platform and rank songs in their favorite artist or band’s discography in order from favorite to least favorite.

The top ranking on The Hidden Jams is usually different from the most-streamed or frequently rotated song on the radio. On The Hidden Jams site, R.E.M.’s No. 1 ranked song is currently “Radio Free Europe.” On Spotify, however, which sorts songs based on the number of streams, the No. 1 spot is held by “Losing My Religion.” This song is ranked No. 9 on The Hidden Jams.

New fans can use the platform to wade through the morass of songs by an artist they’ve just discovered based on recommendations of others. For artists or bands that have recorded dozens of albums, such as Bob Dylan or The Grateful Dead, that could be a helpful way for a newbie to discover hidden gems.

If a listener has already identified they’ve liked a song, there is a likelihood that their next favorite song is in the same catalog, rather than a completely separate one, Wexler said. It’s vertical music discovery, as opposed to a platform like Pandora, which would redirect fans of an artist to other artists they might like.

Artists and groups can also use the rankings to develop setlists for live shows, among other uses.

The transition is a long time coming for Wexler, who founded the initial startup, dubbed GoRankEm, more than 15 years ago. He spent four years in Athens after graduating building the platform, using the Student Learning Center on campus as a de facto office. It was the first tech startup to fundraise through Kickstarter after the crowdfunding platform launched in 2009.

Their site at the time received thousands of unique visitors on a monthly basis, and it would show up at the top of Google results for searches such as “best Widespread Panic songs.” But there was no real path to monetization, whether it was from advertising or affiliate revenue, and he and his team left the project in 2011, Wexler said.

Much has changed since. Wexler’s career led him to create an influencer marketing and audience insights platform called Insightpool in 2011, which was acquired by digital public relations startup TrendKite. He served as a digital and social strategy consultant for the Atlanta Hawks.

In 2017, he cofounded PrizePicks, spending the last decade growing the venture from the Atlanta Tech Village startup hub into one of the country’s most popular daily fantasy sports operators with about 10 million users. Sports betting and gambling is illegal in Georgia, but daily fantasy sites that consider themselves games of skill, not chance, and are permitted under state law.

Gov. Brian Kemp speaks at the PrizePicks office ribbon-cutting ceremony in Atlanta on Thursday, Dec. 12, 2024 (Olivia Bowdoin for the AJC).

Wexler stepped down from his position as CEO in late 2024, handing over the reins to former Blizzard Entertainment President Mike Ybarra, and he transitioned to the role of executive chairman. He exited the company at the end of 2025, though he still serves in an advisory capacity.

The music industry changed during this time, too. Streaming usurped physical media and digital downloads and shifted the ways fans discover music, as well as the ways artists, bands and labels release and market songs. Social media also played a role in these changes.

“The velocity at which songs are being produced and put out has never been faster,” Wexler said. “The need to sift through all the catalogs in an efficient fashion has never been greater. What better way to navigate the catalogs than relying on the people that know the best.”

Adam Wexler (right) exited PrizePicks last year and now serves in an advisory capacity.

Reviving the platform is not a decision he made overnight. In 2019, Wexler wrote on LinkedIn that he intended to bring the platform back as a nonprofit.

The nonprofit model is not common for music tech businesses. Wexler said he doesn’t need it to make money. As a music fan himself, he wanted this type of tool to exist in the world.

Wexler has seeded the company and continues to be its only source of funding. He was in a fortunate position — both in terms of money and time — after he exited PrizePicks to fuel the early stages of the company, he said. After building a base of supporters, the long term plan is to crowdfund to support the platform in its future iterations.