Startups and myth – The $190m Cannabis Fund – Peloton for golf – Wireless brain computer chips – Custom insoles – Barack Obama & NBA Africa – Drone insurance
Day 49
Skin In The Game is a weekly newsletter dedicated to the art of sports investing. We highlight the startups and investors shaping the future of sports and its adjacent nexts – health and entertainment.
We also run a regulated angel syndicate connecting investors with visionary SportsTech startups – a platform for investors, founders and execs to collaborate and co-invest.
Confessions
The first thing I do when putting together this newsletter is line up the week’s deals in my web browser. It’s a moment of organisational chaos that demands loud music and strong coffee. Today, as I opened up each write-up, the tabs became so small that I genuinely struggled to click!
This obviously bodes well for disruptive innovation in sports, but it has implications for the newsletter. I am seeking to strike a healthy balance between news and opinion, but I feel the core product value of this weekly exercise resides in the deal flow, as there are many other fine curators of long-form content out there. So this week, I have decided to focus exclusively on flow, to fit the 30+ transactions into an email that won’t explode your inbox and indeed, your mind.
The sheer volume of capital flowing into sports and health is exciting. It’s an accelerant that will change the industry beyond recognition in the years ahead. This week a wise friend reminded me of Gates’ Law (or perhaps Roy Amara’s Law):
“Most people overestimate what they can achieve in a year and underestimate what they can achieve in ten years.”
I believe this is true of investment in sports. We live in a culture of instant gratification but wholesale transformation isn’t going to happen overnight, or even by the next Olympics. Founders, investors and execs need to be thinking in decades.
The venture model is perfectly suited to drive transformation in sports (diversified bets on Power Law outcomes), so it’s gratifying to see so many specialist firms and angels cropping up. For me, sector specialisation is crucial at this point. The long tail environment is getting longer, tailier (sic) and more difficult to navigate. The age of the generalist VC firm is over (at least for new entrants who lack the resources to straddle multiple sectors). The age of the specialist has only just begun.
For some time I’ve wanted to write a book exploring the entrepreneurial experience within the context of Joseph Campbell's Monomyth (otherwise known as the Hero's Journey) – a field guide to mythology for founders, investors and anyone who's fascinated by startups. In recent weeks I’ve created a prototype in the form of a memo for founders and investors. I’ve circulated this among my network of startup peeps and had great feedback. Inspiration for the project comes from my adventures absorbing the work and lives of Carl Jung, Joseph Campbell, Steven Pressfield, LeBron James, Coco Chanel, and Luke Skywalker! So, we’re in good company...
I’m sharing the memo with you now, conscious that many readers of this newsletter – focused on sports, health and media – may not be that interested in the utility of myth in our everyday lives. But myth is a huge driver of value creation in sports – you only have to look at the lives of Maradona, Florence Griffith Joyner, Lance Armstrong, Lebron James, Simone Biles… the pantheon of sporting greats is home to heroes and villains living cheek by jowl, their stories suffused with legend. This is life imitating art, narrative arcs we have come to expect from Hollywood blockbusters acted out by real people, projections of our brightest dreams and darkest night terrors. Reading myth enables us to understand and optimise ourselves and our ventures. And it can help us to appreciate the true significance of sport, how games transcend culture to resonate with people on a metaphysical level.
I’ve been a writer all my life – bad poetry at school, so-so English Lit at university, a stint as a screenwriter and finally, a long stretch as a consultant working with tech startups to help them communicate better. Now, as an investor, I see writing as pivotal to building and articulating a coherent investment philosophy. And I believe mythology has a key role to play in uncovering the next generation of FAANGs. They’re called unicorns for a reason.
Joseph Campbell, the late, indescribably brilliant scholar of Comparative Mythology who inspired my memo (and in truth, did all of the heavy lifting for me) was clear in his instruction:
“Follow your bliss.
If you do follow your bliss,
you put yourself on a kind of track
that has been there all the while waiting for you,
and the life you ought to be living
is the one you are living.
When you can see that,
you begin to meet people
who are in the field of your bliss,
and they open the doors to you.”
Since launching Skin In The Game, the uncanny experience of meeting people with the same passions, aspirations, and values has become a daily joy.
I hope you enjoy the memo, and if you can find the time to engage and provide feedback, I’d be eternally grateful.
Deal flow
🧃 Lewis Hamilton Among Stars Investing In Athletic Greens – The F1 star is investing in nutritional powder maker Athletic Greens. The investment was led by private equity firm SC.Holdings and included other big names like Shawn Johnson, Hugh Jackman, Cindy Crawford, and Steve Aoki.
👟 Asics Invests In Insole Maker – Asics has taken an unspecified stake in healthcare startup Japan HealthCare, which makes custom insoles working from photos of feet taken by smartphone. The acquisition was made through Asics Ventures, the brand’s investment subsidiary (I’m going to write about Corporate Venture and sports soon).
🌍 Barack Obama joins NBA Africa as strategic partner – The former US president has taken a minority stake in league’s new continental business venture. Not as widely reported as I thought it would have been.
🌿 This $190m Cannabis VC Fund Just Made Three New Draft Picks – Poseidon, a leading venture capital firm in the cannabis industry with roughly $190m in assets under management, announced the first three investments for its third venture fund, Poseidon Garden Ventures.
🧠 Elon Musk’s Neuralink raises over $200m from Google Ventures, others – Neuralink aims to implant wireless brain computer chips to help cure neurological conditions including Alzheimer’s, dementia and spinal cord injuries.
🇨🇦 Silofit secures $15.25m CAD to bring micro-gym model to US – The Montréal-based startup, which offers a network of micro-gyms, has raised CAD 12.75m in Series A funding.
🇵🇹 Portugal-based MyLads scores €7.6m to enable you to connect with your favourite sports club via AR– MyLads offers sports collectables connected to Augmented Reality, letting users interact with their teams, players, and stadiums via their smartphones.
🙍♀️ Peppy, a B2B health platform for menopause, fertility, raises $10m Series A– The company has raised a £6.6m Series A led by Felix Capital.
🏌️♂️ Full Swing Simulators And Envisions Peloton-Like Platform For Golf – Bruin Capital has acquired a controlling interest in leading golf simulator Full Swing, with designs on creating a peloton-like network for golf.
🌙 Alibaba Cofounder And Brooklyn Nets Owner Launches $220m Alliance For Athletic Moon Shots – The billionaire owners of the NBA’s Brooklyn Nets have pledged $220m to a foundation that will fund teams of experts and academics from Stanford University, the University of Kansas, the University of Oregon, UC San Diego, Boston Children’s Hospital and the Salk Institute.
🤖 Irish-founded Woebot raises $90m for mental health chatbot – Irish-founded Woebot, a company that has developed a therapeutic chatbot, has raised $90m.
🤽♀️ Coaching Startup Raises $3.5m Series A Round – MaxOne, a US-based online youth coaching startup, raised $3.5m in Series A money. The round was led by Stadia Ventures, a St. Louis-based sports and eSports venture firm, and also included NBA star Chris Paul, the Piquet Family Office, a minority owner of the Texas Rangers, and the Grand Rapids-based early stage fund Wakestream Ventures.
🍲 FoodTech Pioneer NotCo raises $235m Series D at $1.5bn Valuation – Led by Tiger Global, the financing aims to accelerate the company’s growth in the US, unlock new geographies and product categories, and scale up the company’s AI.
👨⚕️ Meet The Immigrant Entrepreneurs Who Raised $350m To Rethink US Primary Care – Forbes profile of Carbon Health, a leading omnichannel healthcare provider that has raised a whopping $350m.
🧀 Nobell Foods Raises $75m to Expand Plant-Based Cheese – The Series B brings the San Francisco-based startup’s total funding to $100m since its 2017 founding.
🦷 Pangaea Holdings, developing men’s personal care brands, raises $68m, including minority stake from Eurazeo – The investment is part of a larger $68m round that includes $15m in Series B funding from a group of backers including Unilever Ventures and GPO Fund, and existing investors Base10 Partners and Gradient Ventures.
🥛 Urban Remedy Secures Fresh Funding from Manna Tree – The company has raised a $18m Series D round, led by the Colorado-based investment firm committed to improving human health through nutrition. Joining in the round are existing partners Builders Fund and Obvious Ventures.
👨💼 Insurtech startup Spot brings in $17.5m equity, debt to fill insurance gaps for accidental injuries – Headquartered in Austin, the company raised $15m in equity and $2.5m in debt in a round of seed funding led by GreatPoint Ventures, with participation from Montage Ventures, Mutual of Omaha, MS&AD and Silverton Partners. It’s a digital, on-demand injury insurance product.
📱 Health and wellness apps maker Palta raises $100m Series B led by VNV Global – Health and wellness startup Palta has raised $100m in a Series B round led by Per Brillioth at VNV Global, with the participation of Target Global and other investors.
🪂 British drone insurer Flock raises $17m led by Palihapitiya – British drone insurer Flock has raised $17m from investors led by venture investor Chamath Palihapitiya's Social Capital.
🎮. Indian AI-based fitness gamification startup raises $873k in seed funding – Insane AI, an artificial intelligence-driven fitness startup, has raised $873k in seed funding led by Indian early-stage venture capital fund Pi Ventures.
🧘♀️ MYFITNESS raises around $1m in seed round led by 9Unicorns – The Silvassa-based health and fitness-focused food startup raised around $1m in a seed round led by 9Unicorns. It’s a new-age D2C brand aimed at making food products healthier, tastier, and full of nutrients.
🃏 Chris Paul-Backed Dibbs Raises $13m for Sports Card NFTs – The digital sports card company raised $13m in series A funding to grow its NFT platform.
🏏 With $2m in funding from Sachin Tendulkar, JetSynthesys shares the roadmap ahead – JetSynthesys has a catalogue of over 300 games across HTML, Java, Android and iOS platforms spanning across multiple segments.
⛓ Polygon has launched Polygon Studio – The company has pledged to invest $100m in NFT gaming.
🎓 Sports recruiting startup scores $4m to fuel expansion – With a roster of current and former pro athletes behind it, a startup that connects high school athletes with college coaches has clinched $4m in seed funding.
🎮. Austin gaming startup courts investment from San Antonio Spurs – Spurs Sports & Entertainment joined Tribe Gaming’s investor group by pumping an undisclosed amount of money into the company. Founded in 2017, Tribe Gaming is a mobile gaming esports startup with more than 25m subscribers worldwide
🎲 Betcha raises $4m in angel financing from leading names in sports betting – End-to-end sports gaming technology platform Betcha has raised $4m in angel financing this week, including a new extension led by industry leaders Matt Davey, Eyal Shaked, Benjie Cherniak, Sandford Loudon and Sean Hurley. They join prior investors Sinai Ventures and Muse Capital.
⛹️♀️. Sports Team Management App Receives New Investment – ProBook Sports has just received a $50k investment by Flywheel Fund. ProBook provides an all-in-one platform to streamline team management and athlete development. This has to be the smallest round we’ve featured so far in the newsletter – which makes it interesting to me.
Some tweets
Did you see the Lions at the weekend? The game was boring, ugly, long-winded, mean-spirited… and I loved every minute of it. The series decider this coming Saturday will be something truly special, especially for us double-jabbed-late-30-somethings who remember the 1997 documentary and Jim Telfer's epic “Everest” speech… time to put some balls on the line, in more ways than one.
Cheers,
Ed
—
Edward Rhys
Founder / Skin In The Game
www.skininthegamegroup.com
🙏 A favour
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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.
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