The tech startups changing football – Rolling Venture Funds – Optimising Human Performance – The Netflix of Wellness – When EdTech meets sports – The good thing about losing
Day 21
Skin In The Game covers the business of sports investing, curating the deals, articles, podcasts and people you should know about.
We also run a regulated angel investing group that connects investors with visionary SportsTech startups. It’s a platform for investors, entrepreneurs and execs to collaborate and co-invest – and have a lot of fun in the process.
Confessions
Football is dominating the sports headlines here in the UK, with England through to the quarter-finals of the Euros. As a massive Leeds United fan I’m delighted that we finally have a player representing the national side. I’m even happier that he’s the kind of guy who performs touching tributes to his granny, gets incoming fire from DUA LIPA (as you do), and plays every minute of every match, despite having arguably the most taxing physical role in the team. Kalvin Phillips is the man.
This week I spent some time reading and thinking about Rolling Venture Funds. For the uninitiated, this is a new approach to raising capital that enables investors to deploy capital into funds on a recurring basis. With a Rolling Venture Fund, managers can accept new capital in the form of auto-renewing quarterly commitments. I think this structure might support my endgame for Skin In The Game – a vehicle for athletes, sports fans and industry people to gain exposure to the technologies and ideas that are shaping the future of sports on a recurring basis, without the friction of a one-off financial commitment. It aligns well with content creation, social engagement and the behavioural patterns popularised by e-commerce platforms, on-demand entertainment channels and other innovators. AngelList invented the model and looks to be the go-to platform for VCs and super angels to build a frictionless pay-as-you-go investor base (trademark pending). A long term project to scope out and understand in more depth.
My podcast habit is spiralling out of control. The quality has been a little hit and miss, so I keep returning to Fitt Insider, SportsPro, Colossus, and Joyance Partners, who are doing some very interesting stuff in the health and the emerging science of happiness. Listening to these people do their thing makes me feel somewhat inadequate, and that can only be a good thing.
Lots of dealflow this week across the whole gamut of SportsTech verticals – collectibles and NFTs, the (athlete) creator economy, corporate wellness, home fitness, advanced materials and apparel, connected health, streaming and ad-tech, smart venues, and community sports.
Oh, and Peleton are holding a music festival.
Big picture stuff
🎾 How Roger Federer became tennis’ first $1 billion star – Federer’s unmatched endorsement portfolio of blue-chip brands makes him just the sixth athlete (and first tennis player) to rack up $1 billion in career earnings while still active. He joins Tiger Woods, Floyd Mayweather, LeBron James, Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi in the 10-figure club. Here’s Fed ballet dancing.
🏎 Ares $1 billion stake in sports includes F1, La Liga, and the Padres – Whilst on the subject of billions, private equity giant Ares Management has put more than $1bn in investments into sports properties the past six months, including taking stakes in McLaren Racing and Atlético de Madrid while also providing a senior secured credit line to the San Diego Padres. The company is the Death Star of sports investing, with $227bn in AUM.
👩💻 The tech startups changing football – “A new crop of tech startups is changing the way players are scouted and managed, as well as giving fans fresh ways to engage with the game.” Good to see some mainstream tech press coverage of SportsTech.
🏎 How Nascar is utilising data to bring in a new generation of fans – After moving to ban the Confederate Flag from its events last year, the US stock car racing series continues to shift its positioning and bring in younger fans.
Human performance
🎥 Liverpool star Thiago hates modern football – “We see less magic, less fantasy. Footballers do more but faster. There’s no need to dribble because you run. Players are more developed in every sense. You lose that player who’s different, who ‘breathes’; the playmaker who was slower even if he had sublime technique doesn’t get the opportunity to turn.” Thought I would hate this article on the basis of the simplistic headline, but I found it strangely compelling. Only an athlete so committed to his art could speak so eloquently about football, and how the game is changing.
⌚️ Optimising Human Performance – Will Ahmed is the founder of wearable company, WHOOP. In this interview with Colossus he covers how his own backstory ties into the founding of the business, the key design decisions they made in the ultra-competitive wearables market, and how the company grew slowly before inflecting in recent years.
📈 Helping to rejuvenate Rangers – Insights into the training ground methods of Rangers first-team coach Michael Beale, in his own words. The 40-year-old already has one of the most eclectic and varied careers of any English coach. Cool listen from Training Ground Guru, which pitches itself as “your insight into the teams behind the teams in professional football.”
Collectibles
🃏 Blackstone Acquires Certified Collectibles Group at $500M+ Valuation – Blackstone will acquire a majority stake in Certified Collectibles (a set of companies that verify and grade sports trading cards, comics, stamps, and other collectable items, greasing the wheels of the secondary market). An all-star roster of sports figures and executives are getting in on the deal, including Jay-Z’s Roc Nation, Fanatics chairman Michael Rubin, Philadelphia 76ers president Daryl Morey, Miami Heat forward Andre Igoudala, and private equity firm SC.Holdings.
Athlete empowerment
✊ US college athletes secure big victory on pay – This story has been all over my Twitter feed this week, but for those of you who haven’t been dragged into its tractor beam, the US Supreme Court found that rules that forbid student athletes from getting paid tutoring, internships, or other education-related benefits are a violation of antitrust law. Obvious implications for athletes monetising their personal brands in the $14bn college sports market, with an entirely new “asset class” (if living people can be described as such) emerging immediately after the ruling.
📱 Social Media App Calaxy Raises $7.5m, Reveals Slate of Celebrity Creators – A new social media app that lets fans communicate directly with stars in sports and entertainment has raised $7.5m and announced its initial lineup of creators. Brooklyn Nets guard Spencer Dinwiddie is a co-founder of Calaxy (a relatively rare example of an athlete founder).
Entrepreneurship, VC and investing
💰 Tech founder ownership at exit – Snapchat co-founders Evan Spiegel and Robert Murphy owned a combined 44% of the company before it went public. Mark Zuckerberg owned 31% of Facebook, Sergey Brin and Larry Page owned 31% of Google, the founders of Eventbrite owned 34%, and Reed Hastings owned 24% of NetFlix. These are remarkable levels of CEO ownership upon exit, but such high levels aren’t always the case.
✍️ a16z goes into publishing – “The Future” will initially focus on topics related to areas that the firm invests in but will expand over time using a mix of full-time staff, paid contributors and industry operators like founders, academics and entrepreneurs. VCs have been ramping up their storytelling efforts for a long time – it's fascinating to see one of the world's most high-profile investors go all-in on content.
🏀 How to be a Pro’s Pro – Joe McLean is the founder of Intersect Capital, providing financial advisory services to a variety of clients, including a number of NBA players. In this interview he covers the process of setting high standards early on, the concept of a Pro’s Pro, and common mistakes people tend to make with money. I learned a lot.
Corporate wellness
🎟 Gympass secures $220m – The SportsTech behemoth, which partners with corporate clients to provide passes to fitness classes for employees, has raised $220m from investors including SoftBank, General Atlantic and Moore Strategic Ventures. Values business at $2.2bn.
💼 Wellthy Secures $35m in Series B Funding to Support Companies and Employees with Return to Work – Wellthy, a digital care concierge platform that partners with employers to find affordable, high-quality care for employees and their families, raised $35m in Series B funding.
Home fitness
🚴♀️ “The Netflix of Wellness”: Inside the Hollywoodization of Peloton – The bike company has become a global content brand via rigorous scripting of classes, canny promotion of instructors and entertainment industry partnerships.
🎧 Pitbull Is Ready to Ride with Echelon Fitness – In addition to making a financial investment in the company, Pitbull’s involvement will offer considerable new content and value for members. He says, “With this new venture, we look forward to producing new avenues for music and fitness. Music is the universal language. Fitness is a cultural movement. Together we will create a powerful generation.” In other words, GIVE ME EVERYTHING.
🥊 FightCamp punches its way to a $90m round – The interactive at-home training system for boxing/kickboxing raised a $90m round from a long list of investors, including quite the roster of famous fighters. FightCamp uses smart boxing gloves and a punching bag along with core and aerobic fitness movements to give users a full-body workout.
💲 Indian giant Tata Digital to invest $75m in fitness startup CureFit – Tata Digital signed a deal to invest up to $75m in fitness startup CureFit.
Advanced materials
👟 Nike’s New Apparel Line Bridges Generations of Design Innovation – “Within this practice, athlete data and digital design converge, a mastery of body-motion study meets virtuosic traditional craftsmanship and cushioning platforms are reworked in experimental new silhouettes.” The original architects of tech transfer (sneakers started out as specialist sports equipment and ended up everywhere) are at it again, bringing advanced materials to everyday fashion.
👕 OROS Closes $14.5m Series A Funding Round – OROS announced $14.5m in a Series A funding round. Equal parts materials technology company and performance apparel brand, OROS is using first-to-market insulation technology to transform advanced thermal materials into technical fabrics. Good Forbes profile here.
Health
🤸♀️ Kindbody consults GV in $62m series C – US-based fertility and gynaecology services provider Kindbody received $62m in Series capital backed by GV (i.e. Google Ventures).
👟 Plantiga raises $1.2M to launch individual movement health monitoring – Plantiga’s sensor insoles and suite of software enable any group or person to measure and analyse human movement. A large group of professional athlete investors from the Athlete Tech Group were involved, including Thaddeus Young (Chicago Bulls), Patrick Patterson (LA Clippers) and Will Fuller (Miami Dolphins). Interesting to see athletes collectivising in pursuit of investment opportunities and reminiscent of SeventySix Capital’s pioneering Athlete Venture Group.
💀 SWORD Health closes on $85m Series C for virtual musculoskeletal care – The virtual musculoskeletal care platform raised an $85m Series C. Virgílio Bento, said that company was not actively having conversations with external VCs when it raised the round – I guess that’s supposed to be a sign of strength?
⌚️ Terra Raises $2.8m to Build the Future of Health Data – The Y Combinator-backed startup has raised $2.8m in seed funding. Terra aims to integrate health data collected from wearables and other smart devices into a single API.
🏋️♀️ EQT Ventures invests €50m in Lenus to help millions get into shape – Lenus was founded in Copenhagen 2016, and is a platform for health coaches, enabling them to scale their business and ultimately prevent more people from lifestyle related diseases.
Streaming & media
🎓 When EdTech meets sports – In this episode of the brilliant Fitt Insider podcast, Omer Atesmen explains to host Joe Vennare about how his startup The Skills was able to partner with athletes like Michael Phelps, Maria Sharapova, and Megan Rapinoe on its EdTech product, and his mission to build the definitive education platform in the sports and wellness space. Very interesting section on 80/20 content production.
🏒 Jordan, Gretzky and More Invest in Live-Sports Streaming Service – Buzzer, a live-sports streaming service, has raised $20m in funding. Sapphire Sport (a name that keeps cropping up) and Canaan Partners led the round with participation from more than 20 athletes, including Michael Jordan, Wayne Gretzky, Naomi Osaka, football’s Patrick Mahomes and DeAndre Hopkins, and basketball stars Devin Booker, LaMelo Ball and Sabrina Ionescu. They were joined by several team owners – Joe Lacob from the Golden State Warriors, the Tampa Bay Lightning’s Jeffrey Vinik, and Lerner Enterprises, the family firm behind the Washington Nationals.
📺 Bidstack raises £10.9m to develop standardised in-game ad platform – Bidstack has raised £10.9m to fund the development of a new platform for its native in-game advertising technology.
Experiential
🏌️♀️ TOCA Football Raises $40m Of Series E Funding To Expand Soccer Facilities Throughout US and Canada – The company closed $40m of Series E funding as it readies the launch of soccer-themed entertainment venues in the vein of Topgolf, starting with London’s O2 Arena.
♣️ Urban Sports Club closes round with more than 80m euros – ProSiebenSat.1 Group (heck of a name that) led the investment round with a combination of capital and media volume, whatever that means.
🎾 Verdane and Sprints Capital to support racket sports platform’s international growth – MATCHi, the Nordic racket sports platform that connects players with venues, has announced a minority joint investment by Sprints Capital and Verdane.
Smart venues
London-based OnePlan bags £2.75m funding to expand its ultimate event and venue platform – London-based OnePlan is a platform that enables planning and mapping events on one easy-to-use platform and creates a fully interactive 3D Venue Twin of the arena or stadium. Clientele include Arsenal FC, Chelsea FC and the Brooklyn Nets, and Commonwealth Stadium in Canada.
Some tweets
🏉 “The one good thing about losing a final is seeing the enjoyment in the other team and how much it means to them” – I played under Rob for 4 years with Exeter University (1XV) and Exeter Chiefs (2XV), and this is the sort of response I would have expected from him after losing an epic Premiership Rugby Final to Harlequins. I look forward to “Coach Robbie” becoming England’s head honcho one day, which I view as an inevitability considering his expertise, track record, and character.
If you’re not busy watching the Euros this weekend then I’ll guess you’ll be at Peleton’s All For One music festival – a chance to burn some calories whilst watching Tina Turner, Depeche Mode, Pearl Jam, Twenty One Pilots, Doja Cat, Demi Lovato, Migos, Rosalía and a bunch of other talented artists I’ve never heard of.
Cheers,
Ed
—
Edward Rhys
Founder & CEO / Skin In The Game
www.skininthegamegroup.com
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Skin In The Game is an angel investing group connecting investors with visionary SportsTech startups. We provide a regulated platform for fans, athletes, entrepreneurs and brands to collaborate and co-invest. By investing in SportsTech we can unleash the full potential of sports, enriching the lives of people everywhere.
SKIN IN THE GAME LIMITED is registered in England and Wales under Company Number 13200102 and with the FCA as an Appointed Representative with FRN 946089. SKIN IN THE GAME LIMITED is an Appointed Representative of Finex LLP which is authorised and regulated in the UK by the Financial Conduct Authority (“FCA”) with firm reference number 507537.