A psychological wage – Collectibles boom – Oxygen monitoring – Life extension – IoT market colour – Biowearables – Non-alcoholic beer demand – NFT gaming
Week 26
Skin In The Game is a weekly newsletter dedicated to sports investing. We highlight the startups and investors shaping the future of sports and its adjacent markets.
We also run a regulated startup investment club connecting investors with visionary sports, health, and entertainment startups – a platform for investors and founders to collaborate and co-invest.
Get in touch if you want to find out more.
Confessions
In the course of raising a funding round for Skin In The Game I’ve met some amazing people. Some weirdos, too. It’s all part of the magic tapestry of startup life, which is exhilarating, stressful, and comical in equal measure.
Some people have come to me cold. I’ve “reached out” to others. But everyone who’s interested in working with me seems to share the same motivation; they’re interested in more than financial returns.
In his masterful, category-disrupting work of tough love Turning Pro, Steve Pressfield notes that marines get two salaries – a financial salary and a psychological salary:
“The Marine’s financial salary is indeed meager. But what about the psychological salary – the feeling of pride and honor, the sense of belonging to a brotherhood with a brave and noble history, and knowing that, no matter what happens, you remain a member of that fraternity for as long as you live.”
My Dad served in the Royal Marines and he has built a fantastic life around the sense of discipline and duty that serving in an elite military force instilled in him. I’m not suggesting for one minute that investing in startups is like fighting wars, but both professions offer a psychological pay off.
When we sink our hard-earned cash into founders and their fantastic creations we part with more than money, and we receive more than money in return.
The concept of investment is richly ambiguous. It refers to personal growth, physical health, spiritual transformation, social integration, and finally, financial security.
When you passively index your money to the stock market (as indeed most people should) you get percentage points and paper gains, the ability to sleep at night. When you dive headfirst into the world of startups and technology, you’re getting something else entirely – a glimpse of the future; a chance to connect with people you would not meet through your work or indeed your social life; a shot at the kind of personal growth that cannot be measured. And yes, there’s also the prospect of life-altering, generational wealth.
During my fundraising process I have met a lot of very smart, very wealthy, very nice people. And they are all fascinated by startups. They want to invest in them. They want to help them. They want to be around them. They “feel the fear and do it anyway”. For me, this is the only way startup investing is ever going to work and deliver return on investment, both financially and personally.
Part of the problem is that investors are all too often not seen as people (the same is true for product “users” and “consumers”). They are units of economic value, with a cost of acquisition, a lifetime value, and a churn rate. The same goes for founders, who are too often seen as little more than sockets, flesh-and-bone APIs that enable institutions to plug into startups and extract the value they generate for customers and society at large.
You can’t bet on people (although I’m sure that in the brave new era of NFTs, there will be an app for that soon enough). But you can invest in them. And investing in people – and trying to help them achieve their audacious goals – is what angel investing is all about. For all the deal screening, due diligence, checklists, financial models and go/no go calls, investing in startups remains an intuitive, people-led process. Once the boxes are ticked, it comes down to whether you believe in a founder’s ability to deliver on their transformative vision. And it helps if you like them.
The psychological compensation on offer from such a strategy is immense, even if the economics don’t stack up for everyone.
Deal flow
⛓ SportsIcon raises $5.5 million from some of the best investors in tech and crypto – SportsIcon has raised $5.5 million in our seed round from "some of the best investors in tech and crypto". That includes Dapper Labs, AU21 Capital, Vinny Lingham, Elefund, Craig Clemens, 4th Revolution Capital, Vendetta Capital, Sunny Madra, FishDAO and more.
🃏 Amazon Invests in Trading-Card Platform Dibbs as Collectibles Boom – Amazon.com Inc. is investing in sports-card marketplace Dibbs, entering a booming collectibles industry as interest rises in alternative assets. Dibbs previously raised about $16 million from venture firms Foundry Group, Tusk Venture Partners, Courtside Ventures and Founder Collective. It also has a group of athlete investors, including the NBA’s Chris Paul and Kevin Love.
🦄 Atlana Falcons QB Matt Ryan, Hawks Star John Collins Among Athletes to Invest in Daily Fantasy App PrizePicks – Atlanta Falcons quarterback Matt Ryan and Atlanta Hawks forward John Collins have invested in PrizePicks, a daily fantasy sports startup based in Atlanta. The Players’ Impact, a venture capital fund for pro athletes, also invested in PrizePicks’ latest round.
🇺🇸 OxiWear raises $1.25M for wearable oxygen monitoring device – OxiWear, an Arlington-based company developing a wearable oxygen monitoring device, has raised a pre-seed funding round of $1.25 million, exceeding its goal of $750,000. Leading the pre-seed round was GAP Funds, an investment program of the Virginia Innovation Partnership Corporation – formerly CIT – that previously invested in the company this summer.
📈 Maria Sharapova Partners With Investment App Public – Public, an online platform for investing in the stock market and cryptocurrencies, has added retired tennis star Maria Sharapova as an investor. She will also serve as an advisor to One Team, a program Public recently launched to provide financial literacy tools to NCAA student athletes in the wake of NIL legislation.
🎮 100 Thieves secures $60m funding round – The financing round was led by Green Bay Ventures with support from existing and new investors such as Breyer Capital, Aglae Ventures, Tao Capital, and Willoughby Capital, among others. According to the release, the investment sees 100 Thieves have a value of around $460m. 100 Thieves currently fields teams in a number of esports titles such as VALORANT and League of Legends. Moreover, the organisation also has a content creation team that includes the likes of streamers and co-owners Rachell ‘Valkyrae’ Hofstetter and Jack ‘CouRage’ Dunlop.
🧠 Mindhouse raises $6 million in seed capital – Wellness platform Mindhouse has raised $6 million in a seed round led by Binny Bansal. Other investors included General Catalyst, Better Capital, Kwaish Capital, Anicut and founders Pooja Khanna and Pankaj Chaddah. Angels participating in the round include Rohit MA of Cloudnine, Ritesh Malik of Innov8 and Karan Singh & Sri Rajan of Bain & Co.
🤑 $12T IoT Market Could help Grow Sports, Fitness Companies – Overall deal activity for IoT technologies has already reached $10.9 billion and 611 deals across various markets.
🏒 Fenway Sports Group reaches agreement to purchase Pittsburgh Penguins – Mario Lemieux and Ron Burkle will still be part of the Penguins ownership group despite the upcoming changes. Others will also remain with the team, including the club's senior management team of CEO David Morehouse, COO Kevin Acklin, President of Hockey Operations Brian Burke, General Manager Ron Hextall and head coach Mike Sullivan.
💰 Financial Literacy App Goalsetter Raises $15 Million Backed by Kevin Durant, Carmelo Anthony and Others – Financial education and banking app Goalsetter has raised a $15 million Series A round which includes funding from NBA stars Kevin Durant, Carmelo Anthony and Andre Drummond. The round was led by Seae Ventures, with additional contributions from Fiserv, Mass Mutual and Citizens Financial Group.
🧢 Endeavor To Buy 9 Minor League Baseball Teams – UFC parent Endeavor plans to acquire nine minor league baseball teams through the creation of a new organization, Diamond Baseball Holdings. The announcement comes after reports in October that Endeavor and Silver Lake were interested in acquiring a group of minor league teams — despite each team losing an estimated $5 million last year.
🔔 MANSCAPED to Become a Publicly Traded Company via Business Combination With Bright Lights Acquisition Corp – The transaction implies a combined company enterprise value of approximately $1 billion. High-growth, profitable consumer lifestyle brand MANSCAPED, had $285 million in trailing twelve-month revenue and expects to grow to over $500 million in TTM revenue by 2023 through international growth and product expansion, furthering its lead in the male self-care category.
🩸 Levels raises $12 million for biowearable that tracks impact of diet on health – Founded out of New York in 2019, Levels has developed software capable of interpreting glucose data captured from a sensor. The sensor attaches to the back of a person’s arm via a tiny probe they insert under the surface of their skin. The device takes a glucose reading automatically every 15 minutes, transmitting relevant data to the Levels smartphone app for processing. Deal was backed by a number of notable angel investors, including Netflix cofounder Marc Randolph and former Twitter CEO Dick Costolo.
🌱 Plant-based “Farmacy” Apothekary closes $3.5m seed round – The round attracted entrepreneurs as investors, with 80% of participants being founders themselves, including seasoned executives from the pharmaceutical, beauty, and real estate industries.
👴 Longevica takes in $2.5M as it launches open research resources to examine life extension – The company took in $2.5 million in funding led by Xploration Capital.
🧀 Animal-free Cheese Brand, New Culture, Closes Their $25m Series A Investment – Having proven their ability to produce animal-free casein and animal-free mozzarella, New Culture has closed their Series A funding round, enabling the company to make the transition to a commercial entity by making key hires and scaling up their production capacity. The $25m, oversubscribed round was led by Ahren Innovation Capital and CPT Capital, putting New Culture in a league amongst renowned scientists and leaders across cutting-edge fields.
🍺 Heaps Normal brews $8.5m raise as non-alcoholic beer demand rises – The $8.5 million Series A round was led by Heaps Normal chief executive Andy Miller, and was open and closed within a week with backing from the likes of Who Gives A Crap founder Simon Griffiths, Athletic VC managing partner Matt de Boer and Tripple executive director Bec Milgrom.
👩⚖️ Rosy Closes $2M Seed Round to Further Novel Developments for Women's Sexual Health – Rosy Wellness, the app changing the sex lives of women across the country, raised an additional $2 million in seed funding. The round led by Austin-based True Wealth Ventures with additional participation from Portfolia's Femtech II Fund and Mindshift Capital.
🎒 Helen of Troy Announces Agreement to Acquire Osprey Packs – Helen of Troy Limited (NASDAQ: HELE), designer, developer and worldwide marketer of consumer brand-name housewares, health, home, and beauty products, announced that one of its subsidiaries has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Osprey Packs, Inc. Osprey’s product lineup includes a wide range of backpacks and daypacks for hiking, mountaineering, skiing, climbing, mountain biking, trail running, commuting, and school.
🤝 CSM acquires partner firm Greenroom Digital – Global agency CSM Sport and Entertainment (CSM) has confirmed the acquisition of marketing firm Greenroom Digital. CSM has been in partnership with Greenroom Digital for three years, delivering digital and data strategies for a range of clients. Those include brands such as HSBC and AIA, as well as rights holders including the Alpine Formula One team.
⛓ MetaFrames.io - NFT Startup for Premium Licensed NFTs Closes Seed Round at £10m – MetaFrames completed its second round of seed funding of £500,000 at a valuation of £10m. This round of funding was led by a group of angel investors including early investors in fintech startups, including challenger bank Revolut and NFT-based fantasy football card firm Sorare (which completed a $680m Series B round in September 2021).
🎮 Oneiric Gaming Raises Funds From Actor Rannvijay Singha – The startup aims to expand its user base to reach 1M users in the next three quarters and is looking to penetrate deeper into tier 1 and tier 2 cities across the country, and South-East Asia. In December last year, it had raised funds from Trishneet Arora, the founder of TAC Security.
⛓ GameOn Secures Polygon Investment to Fund NFT Gaming – Polygon Studios, the gaming arm of Ethereum infrastructure developer Polygon, has invested in sports gaming technology provider GameOn. Polygon will help develop NFT-based contests for GameOn, which has deals to make free-to-play games for the WNBA, NWSL and the NFL's Jacksonville Jaguars.
🥣 Better-for-you mac and cheese Goodles aims for adult appeal – The company received $6.4 million in funding thus far from investors including Springdale Ventures, Willow Growth Partners, Third Craft, Gingerbread Capital and Purple Arch Venture. Private investors include Twitter co-founder Biz Stone, venture capitalist Allison Rose, and, according to the company, a variety of NBA stars and Olympians.
Some tweets
I used to be an F1 fan, then I lost track of all the rules and regulations. But this season has been a bit of a renaissance. In a sports industry where so many rivalries are manufactured (boxing springs to mind), the Hamilton/Verstappen feud stands out as real and compelling. I just hope it doesn’t end in either of them doing something stupid at the weekend.
Cheers,
Ed
—
Edward Rhys
Founder / Skin In The Game
www.skininthegamegroup.com
🙏 A favour
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Skin In The Game is a startup investment club connecting investors with visionary sports, health, and entertainment startups. We provide a regulated platform for investors and entrepreneurs to collaborate and co-invest.
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.