The Entertainment Game – Athlete "stock market" – Another Metaverse fund – Collectibles trading exchange – Next-generation live video apps – Digital ticketing – At-Home Fertility Services
Week 38
Skin In The Game is a weekly newsletter dedicated to investing in sports. We highlight the startups and investors shaping the future of sports and its adjacent markets.
We also run a regulated investment club that connects sports investors with industry experts across emerging technologies like the Metaverse, Web3, AI, and Psychedelics.
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Confessions
Spring is in the air and F1 is coming back to our screens. Last season was very much a case of life imitating art. The clue’s in the word “season”, a noun that used to be inextricably linked with sports, but has now been claimed by Netflix, Amazon Prime, and a host of streaming services.
Sports and entertainment have become one, creating stunning commercial opportunities and legions of very angry keyboard warriors screaming for the good old days (which weren’t that great anyway).
Sports has always been about storytelling. But on-demand content has opened up a new frontier in character development. The mythical Hero’s Journey beloved of Hollywood film executives has well and truly arrived in sports, creating deep engagement with fans who crave the emotive power of myth. “God is dead”, and in his place stands Tom Brady, LeBron James, and Serena Williams.
The line between unscripted and scripted content has been blurred and some people understandably feel disorientated, alienated, perhaps even a little bit cheated. The fallout from the 2021 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix was thrilling, fascinating, and tragic in equal measure. An official lost his job trying to preserve the spectacle he thought the fans deserved; a driver lost “his” record-breaking 8th World Champion title due to the unexpected malleability of race rules; and a sport lost its credibility with die-hard fans who believe in the sanctity of racing regulations.
But if F1 is good at anything, it’s reinvention. The sport is constantly seeking to adapt and evolve. The latest paradigm shift in car design should re-shuffle the pack (admittedly in a limited way considering the brute reality of resource distribution amongst the teams), and the perennial migration of drivers from one team to another and back again ensures that new stories can be written by the same characters.
It doesn’t matter if Mercedes and Red Bull continue to dominate. I’m not even sure F1 is a sport that relies on competition. It’s a spectacle, a projection of our desires, fears, and insecurities. Those who abhor the conspicuous wealth, naked machismo, and childish competitiveness on display should heed Carl Jung’s observation that “everything that irritates us about others can lead us to an understanding of ourselves.” Liking F1 says little about you, but hating it – hating any sport – says a lot.
Like everything that wants to live, sports must evolve. It can, and it will, because that what’s stories do. It’s easy to condemn the fusion of sports and entertainment as cynical and avaricious. But resistance is futile. The story continues to tell itself, whether we like it or not. Better to be in the room shaping the future and writing the next chapter.
Deal Flow
🏌️♂️ Scorecard App Golf GameBook Raises $3.2M – Digital scoring and social community app Golf GameBook has closed a $3.27M funding round. The round was fueled by a series of strategic investors, including Carl Manneh, founder of Minecraft; Fredrik Österberg, co-founder of Evolution; Rustan Panday, investor of Storytel; Martti Aarnio-Wihuri, board member of Wihuri Group; and Pii Ketvel, CEO of MARCOL Capital Europe.
🎲 Alex Rodriguez and Marc Lore invest in athlete ‘stock market’ app – Former MLB star Alex Rodriguez and ex-Walmart chief executive Marc Lore are investing in a new company aiming to become a ‘stock market’ for professional athletes. The new business, which is called Mojo, allows fans to buy and sell players whose values rise and fall based on their performances.
💰 Fanatics valuation hits $27bn following latest funding round – Fanatics has raised a further $1.5 billion as it continues its ongoing expansion into areas beyond its core licensed sports merchandise business. The new financing values the digital sports platform at $27 billion and included investment from BlackRock, Fidelity and Michael Dell’s MSD Capital, sources said. Previous investors in the company have included US investment company Silver Lake, rapper Jay-Z and his Roc Nation entertainment company, Japanese conglomerate SoftBank, and Eldridge owner Todd Boehly.
🇧🇪 Standard Liège takeover adds to 777 Partners soccer portfolio – Alternative investment firm 777 Partners has added another soccer club to its burgeoning sports portfolio by agreeing a takeover of Belgian top-flight outfit Standard Liège. US-based 777 will buy 100 per cent of the club’s shares.
🧢 Crowdfunding Platform StartEngine Targets $46 Million Raise To Grow Its Collectibles Exchange – Crowdfunding platform StartEngine is aiming to raise $46 million to fund the growth of its collectibles trading exchange and help private startups find fresh fundraising. Since launching in 2014, Burbank-based StartEngine has helped startups raise over $500m from roughly 760k investors across more than 500 offerings, according to the company. As well as enabling investors to buy stakes in businesses, it also operates a collectibles platform allowing them to invest in everything from artwork to vintage comic books.
📹 100ms secures $20M to power next generation of live video apps – Live video conferencing infrastructure startup 100ms, based in India and the US, has raised $20 million in Series A funding to power the next generation of live video apps, coming barely five months after closing a seed round. This latest round was led by Falcon Edge’s Alpha Wave Incubation, with participation from Matrix Partners India and LocalGlobe and existing investors Accel and Strive.vc. It brings to $24.5 million the total funding raised by the startup.
🏋️♂️ Smart Gym Fitness Brand SPEEDIANCE Obtains Multi-Million Dollar Pre-A Funding from Venture Capital Firm FREES FUND – The round will be used to increase product output, market expansion, and talent acquisition.
🧫 Ro Acquires Sperm Analysis and Storage Company Dadi to Offer a Suite of At-Home Fertility Services – Ro, a direct-to-patient healthcare company, acquired Dadi, a fertility company specialising in the facilitation of sperm testing, analysis, and storage. The deal follows Ro's recent acquisition of Modern Fertility, one of the country's fastest growing women's health companies.
🇬🇧 Excel Sports Management to Acquire UK-based Nolan Partners – Excel Sports Management, an industry-leading sports agency, has agreed to acquire sports and entertainment executive search firm Nolan Partners.
👩⚕️ Omada Health Closes $192 Million Series E Financing to Bring Virtual-First Care to Millions – Omada Health, a chronic care integrated healthcare provider, closed a $192 million Series E funding round led by Fidelity Management & Research Company with participation from aMoon, existing investors Perceptive Advisors, Wellington Management, Civilization Ventures, and others.
🇪🇸 Spain’s SportBoost Accelerator Partners With Wayra to Fund Sports Tech Startups – Madrid-based startup accelerator SportBoost is partnering with innovation hub Wayra to invest in sports technology companies. Selected startups will receive up to $770,000 in joint funding from Wayra and SportBoost, which was founded by former Real Madrid goalkeeper Iker Casillas.
🏀 No Former NBA Star Has Jumped Into the Metaverse Quite Like Investor and Entrepreneur – Former NBA All-Star point guard Baron Davis is one of the most prolific investors and entrepreneurs among retired athletes. Through his company, Baron Davis Enterprise, he has made nearly 50 public investments, founded several companies and produced multiple documentaries. The former UCLA star was one of the original investors for Vitaminwater and then started Sports and Lifestyle in Culture, The Black Santa Company, Business Inside the Game, More Than Us and No Label. Among his noteworthy sports investments is Overtime. Baron Davis.
🎮 Nazara partners with Griffin Gaming Partners one of the largest global venture funds exclusively focused on gaming – Griffin Gaming Partners Fund II was founded by Peter Levin, Phil Sanderson, and Nick Tuosto, with LionTree as a strategic partner to the Fund. The firm prefers to invest in gaming platforms and infrastructure, gaming content, and game studios.
⛓ Public Acquires Platform That Lets You Buy Part Ownership In Alternative Assets Like NFTs – Stock trading platform Public has purchased Otis, a startup that allows individual investors to buy fractional ownership in alternative assets including NFTs and sports memorabilia.
🇲🇦 Morocco’s Guichet.com raises $309K – Morocco-based digital ticketing platform Guichet.com, has received $309,000 equity financing from the 212 Founders programme via CDG Invest. Founded in 2019 by Moulnakhla Ahmed Tawfik, Guichet.com provides partners with the ability to sell and monitor ticketing in real-time.
🇫🇷 French startup Bodyguard.ai raises €9M to protect communities and brands from toxic online content – The round was led by Keen Venture Partners and Ring Capital, with existing investor Starquest Capital doubling down on its seed investment.
🌳 Former Livongo execs launch rural healthcare startup Homeward with $20M investment – General Catalyst led the investment in the startup to help fuel its launch.
🦄 FOV Ventures launches €25m fund to back metaverse startups – FOV Ventures has launched its first fund to invest in early-stage startups building the metaverse, closing €16.5m of its targeted €25m. The fund will invest in pre-seed and seed-stage businesses across Europe.
👩⚕️ Avant-garde Health lands $12M, rolls out surgical care analytics platform – Fulcrum Equity Partners led the series A funding round, joined by Sparta Group and prior investors General Catalyst, Founder Collective and Tectonic Ventures.
🎮 Flush with VC money, gaming and e-sports brands hunt growth beyond pandemic – Popular gaming and e-sports companies like MPL, OneTo11, WinZO, Rooter and many others have secured investments from global venture funds in the last one year.
🦍 Health Gorilla grabs $50M for national data-sharing network – SignalFire led the series C round, with participation from Epsilon Health Investors, IA Capital and Nationwide Ventures.
🏈 ‘Build with Bobby’: As Seahawks star departs, Seattle VC firm excited to keep Wagner as partner – Bobby Wagner’s career with the Seattle Seahawks has come to an end after 10 seasons, but his career as a tech investor in the city will keep going, according to the venture capital firm where he joined as a partner in 2020.
Some Tweets
Just planning my week... In addition to working on Skin In The Game’s first subscription product I have to stay in touch with; Dan Evans at Indian Wells; England’s cricketers in the Second Test; Leeds in the Premier League; England in the Six Nations; and goodness-knows-who in the Bahrain Grand Prix! The sporting calendar is utterly relentless right now. At a time of great suffering and sadness in the world, we should be grateful for that.
Yours in sports,
Ed
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Ed Rhys
Founder / Skin In The Game
www.skininthegamegroup.com
A favour
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