Founder's Club – Underwater audio-streaming – Behavioural health startups – Cricket NFTs – VAR specialist – Youth sports safety – Non-alcoholic beer – Speed printing technology
Week 39
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.
We’re currently scoping out a new subscription product for founders – for an affordable monthly subscription users get access to a dedicated newsletter; sports investment database with data on active investors across sports / health / entertainment; and a LinkedIn Group to bounce ideas and solve problems with us and other founders. If you’d like to get involved, let us know.
Confessions
Who’d be a founder?
It may be seen as cool, aspirational, progressive in our swinging post-COVID late-capitalist society, but actually going all-in and starting a business with a statistical <10% chance of success is a ballsy / kamikaze move for most people. I’ve done it a few times now, and it doesn’t get easier. For me, or my wife!
One of the most famous opening lines in literature comes from Leo Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina: “All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.” The same is true of startups. When it’s working, it feels AMAZING. Users are growing, product is evolving, investors are clamouring, talent is flocking.
When it’s not clicking, it’s a bloody nightmare. A startup that’s moving in the wrong direction is a hostile environment, especially for people who tend towards the optimistic, bordering on self-delusional (i.e. all founders). It can be hard to see the wood from the trees – and vice-versa – and make the changes required to course correct and claw your way out of the mire.
Founders need support. They need each other. That’s why Scott and I have decided to build a community for founders to collaborate on fundraising, strategy, growth, and everything in between. In the absence of a clever name, we’re calling it Founder’s Club.
We created Skin In The Game because we wanted to invest in sports startups. In the process, tonnes of founders have got in touch to ask for help with fundraising, strategy, growth, and honestly, a bit of moral support. We get decks in the post (our collective term for email and LinkedIn) every day, some good, some bad, but all worthy of attention.
Talking with founders and helping them to solve their problems is my favourite thing about the business. But there are only so many hours in the day/week and if we’re going to get our angel syndicate firing on all cylinders, we need to create a scalable method of helping founders whilst balancing the time we spend working with investors and industry experts.
Building a subscription product for founders is a natural progression and an obvious compliment to our investment activities. It helps us to help more people, since it makes that help affordable to bootstrapped founders who are facing the infamous chicken/egg/product/funding predicament. And it enables us to drive income so we can make our business sustainable and reinvest in growing our syndicate (and over time, productise this in the form of a fintech platform).
Our founder community is already proving to a source of proprietary deal flow. As it develops, we hope/expect it to bring domain expertise and network effects into the mix, powering our investment activities. This dynamic should work both ways, with investors and industry experts helping founders to solve problems and scale their businesses. I’m not going to use the word “flywheel” here, but you get the message...
Next week I’ll share more info on our plans for Founder’s Club – the product and how we think it can help people. We’re still in experimentation mode, chatting with founders to get feedback on our MVP and understand how we can serve them best via this format. If you’re a risk-taker building a business in sports, health, or entertainment, and you’re up for having a chat, we’d be grateful to get your input. And I promise not to quote Tolstoy at you!
Deal Flow
🇬🇧 Ex-Premier League and Sky chiefs join $4.5m Monterosa funding round – British fan engagement tech company Monterosa has secured £3.5 million in growth capital from a group of investors including former Premier League chief Richard Scudamore and ex-Sky boss Jeremy Darroch. The funding round was led by 24Haymarket and included existing backer ACF Investors as well as another new investor, Chris Rodman, who previously served as group managing director at collectables giant Topps.
🏏 Ronaldo Said Among Backers in Cricket NFT Startup Fundraise – An online platform for trading officially-licensed digital cricket collectibles, is raising about $100 million in a new funding round with backers including Cristiano Ronaldo, according to people with knowledge of the matter. Venture capital firms B Capital Group and Insight Partners are leading FanCraze’s Series A round.
⛓ Naomi Osaka gets equity stake in FTX as part of ambassador deal – Cryptocurrency exchange platform FTX has named Naomi Osaka as a global ambassador in a partnership that also sees the tennis star handed an equity stake in the company and some payments made in digital currency.
🎥 DFL’s Sportec Solutions acquires VAR specialist Vieww – Sportec Solutions (STS), the joint venture between the German Football League (DFL) and technology company Deltatre, has acquired goal-line technology (GLT) and video assistant referee (VAR) solutions provider Vieww.
🇺🇸 Youth Sports Safety, Tech Platform Raises $28M – Players Health, a Minnesota-based sports technology platform, has closed a $28 million funding round to support its mission of providing insurance and risk-management services for youth sports organizations. Led by global insurer SiriusPoint and Mastry Ventures, a VC firm launched by three-time NBA champion Andre Iguodala, the round will allow Players Health to invest in technology, athlete safety, and insurance offerings for sports organizations.
🏋️♂️ BLOK, the hybrid studio and digital fitness platform, secures £3.75m in pre-Series A ‘bridge’ funding – Award-winning hybrid studio and digital fitness platform BLOK has secured £3.75m in a funding round led by ACF Investors, with additional investment from Elcot Capital and The Santon Group. The funding round also included investment from the UK government’s Future Fund, Crowdcube and angel investor Rob Wirszycz, who will be joining the business as Chairman.
🇲🇽 wOS raises – Mexico City-based wOS (YC W21) raised $1.2 million in a round led by NOEMIS Ventures for its personalised and immersive fitness training platform for Spanish speakers.
🎧 Zygo Raises $2.5M in Seed Funding – Zygo, a Los Angeles, CA-based underwater audio-streaming firm, raised $2.5M in Seed funding. Backers included two-time Olympic gold medallist, Alistair Brownlee MBE.
💰 Peloton Ex-CEO Sells $50 Million of Stock to Firm Linked to Michael Dell – Peloton Interactive co-founder John Foley, who stepped down from the chief executive officer role last month, sold about $50 million in stock to MSD Partners, a firm that manages money for billionaire Michael Dell.
🧠 Mental health startup earns (Series) A+ – Daybreak Health has done its homework. The school-facing behavioral health startup raised $10 million in a Series A round led by Lightspeed Venture Partners. Maven Ventures and individual investors including BetterUp's Alexi Robichaux, Remind's Brian Grey and GSV's Deborah Quazzo also contributed to Daybreak's funding round.
🤝 Virgin Active announces new CEO and Real Foods acquisition – Upon implementation of the £28.6 million acquisition, Real Foods Group's nutrition assets will be combined with Virgin Active to create a wellness group.
🍺 Partake Brewing Raises $16.5m to meet soaring consumer demand for non-alcoholic beer – The Series B capital will accelerate the company's leadership in the non-alcoholic category and meet the increasing consumer demand for quality non-alcoholic options. The funding was led by US based investors PowerPlant Partners and Amberstone, alongside support from existing investors CircleUp Growth Partners (CircleUp), Barrel Ventures and McLean & Associates.
🖨 Thorne HealthTech Acquires Nutrativa – Acquisition of Nutrativa and its high-speed printing technology will enable Thorne HealthTech to add quick-dissolving supplement discs to its product offerings.
🇺🇸 SimplyProtein Closes Latest Funding Round as it Continues North American Expansion – In November 2021, Wellness Natural, the parent company of the SimplyProtein brand, raised $8.5M in a Series B funding round. This round is focused exclusively on growth capital to accelerate distribution gains in the US and Canada, scale eCommerce, increase investments in marketing programs and bring new product innovations to market.
🏕 L Catterton Acquires Taxa Outdoors – Taxa Outdoors, the leading manufacturer of lightweight, mobile habitats for outdoor adventure, has been acquired by the Growth Fund of L Catterton, the largest global consumer-focused private equity firm. RX3 Growth Partners, a growth equity firm backed by a network of professional athlete and celebrity investors, is investing alongside L Catterton.
👩⚕️ Vivante Health raises $16M as it aims to digitize digestive care – Vivante Health, a digital health company that wants to bring virtual tools to digestive care raised $16 million in Series A funding led by 7wireVentures. New investors in the round include Human Capital, Intermountain Ventures, SemperVirens and Elements Health Ventures. Previous backers FCA Venture Partners, NFP Ventures, Lifeforce Capital, and Big Pi Ventures also joined in.
🤰 Wildflower Health Closed $26 Million Financing Round to Support National Expansion of Value-Based Maternity Care Offerings – Wildflower Health, a women’s health solutions company specializing in digital and value-based care, closed a new financing round of $26 million. The round was led by TT Capital Partners with participation from existing investors, including Providence Ventures, Health Enterprise Partners, Hatteras Venture Partners, and Echo Health Ventures.
🧠 Kintsugi Raises $20M Series A from Insight Partners, Works Towards New Standard for Mental Healthcare – Kintsugi raised $20M in Series A funding, bringing the company’s total capital raised to $28M since its inception in 2019. The funding round was led by New York-based global venture capital and private equity firm Insight Partners, with participation from Acrew Capital, Darling Ventures, Citta Capital, Side Door Ventures, Primetime Partners, IT Farm, AngelList Fund, and Alpha Edison.
👨⚕️ Jude completes pre-seed – Jude has raised £2 million pre-seed capital to bring bladder care into the mainstream. The company has created a bladder care range to help prevent, manage and improve bladder symptoms. Investors included June Angelides MBE at Samos Investments, Access VC, Reckitt’s innovation fund, Stephen B., David Rowan.
🤖 juli secures $3.8 million for AI-powered platform to help manage chronic conditions – juli, the AI-powered digital health platform empowering patients and their care teams to manage complex chronic conditions, secured $3.8 million in seed funding. Leading the round were Speedinvest, one of Europe's most active early-stage venture capital firms, and Norrsken VC, a fund investing in start-ups solving the world's biggest problems while building massive businesses. SoftBank's Vision Fund Emerge Program and Dieter von Holtzbrinck Ventures also joined the financing round.
🙎♀️ Vira Health gets $12M to dial up personalized menopause support – Vira Health, a UK startup that offers personalized digital therapeutics for women going through menopause, has closed a second round of funding – taking $12 million from lead investor Octopus Ventures, along with participation from US-based VC firm Optum Ventures, as it gears up to hop over the pond. Vira’s £1.5 million seed – announced last summer – included backing from LocalGlobe, MMC Ventures, Amino Collective and other angels. The startup is reluctant to label this “second raise” using standard fundraising terminology but, when pressed, pegs it as equivalent to a Series A.
🥛 Goode Partners Closed a $30M Investment in JOCKO FUEL to Accelerate Growth – Goode Partners LLC, the New York-based private equity firm, announced a minority investment in JOCKO FUEL, a disruptive and rapidly-growing provider of premium sports and lifestyle nutritional products. JOCKO FUEL was established in 2017 when decorated Navy SEAL, Jocko Willink, entered a partnership with CEO, Pete Roberts.
🚴♀️ SRAM buys Velocio in latest acquisition deal – SRAM has acquired Velocio Apparel, the cycling clothing brand hailing from New England, USA. The move will see Velocio join other recent acquisitions, Hammerhead and Time, alongside more established brands in Rockshox, Quarq, Truvativ and Zipp, beneath the umbrella of the SRAM LLC group, which is headquartered in Chicago.
🚸 Once Upon a Farm Closed $52 Million in New Funding to Support Rapid Growth as the Category Leader in the Fresh Baby and Kid Snacking Space – Once Upon a Farm, the next generation children's nutrition company and makers of organic, crave-worthy snacks and meals for kids of all ages, closed $52 million in Series D funding. This investment was led by CAVU Venture Partners, along with existing investors S2G Ventures, Cambridge, and Beachwood.
🗞 Outside Interactive Acquires Fastest Known Time – Outside Interactive, the world’s leading creator of active and healthy lifestyle content, events, and experiences, acquired Fastest Known Time (FKT), a rapidly growing website that’s widely recognized as the authoritative governor and database of speed records in running, hiking, and endurance sports.
📱 Not Less But Better – Smartphone addiction may be one of the most elusive challenges of the century, but Not Less But Better is committed to putting the power back into the hand of the user. The company has closed our pre-seed round with nearly €1M, and 47% female investment. The round included Christian Rebernik (former CTO N26, Founder Tomorrow's Education), Jenny Saft (Founder Oviavo), Mental Wellness Impact Fund Masawa (Joshua Haynes, Huria Ogbamichael, Niels Devisscher), Marc Griefahn (Founder Weinmann), Ina Schlie (Founder encourage ventures, VP SAP), Jean-Pierre Ulrich (CEO bellicon), Sebastian Klein (Founder Blinkist, Neue Narrative), Frank Westermann (Founder mysugr, 9am health), Matthias von Bechtolsheim (Founder Heimat), Benjamin Minack (Founder Ressourcenmangel), Myriam Kirschner (Founder DataProtectPlus, Partner Rechtsanwälte Kirschner), Tamara Kaes (Founder, Kaes und Kollegen), Elena Girlich (Manager PWC), Gudrun Timm (Partner Carpe Diem International), Heidrun Twesten (Founder IMPACCT), and Olga Kaus (Lead Corporate Governance Mytheresa).
🩳 M&S invests in The Sport Edit – Founded in 2015 by entrepreneur Nick Paulson-Ellis, the platform concentrates on bespoke brand curation across activewear. Investing in ‘The Sports Edit’ is a continuation of M&S’s strategic focus on activewear, a market which is now worth almost £900m after seeing 35% growth over the last two years.
🍬 SmartSweets Announces Actress Nina Dobrev In First Round of Celebrity Investors – SmartSweets, the better-for-you candy brand on a mission to kick sugar, announced that Canadian actress, Nina Dobrev, has joined as an investor. The brand is partnering with Dobrev to bring widespread awareness to its flavorful and iconic low-sugar candy offerings that are perfect for any occasion. Additional investors in this strategic round of funding include Grammy nominated Canadian singer-songwriter Shawn Mendes and manager Andrew Gertler, American actress Zoey Deutch, and PLUS Capital.
🇬🇧 UK gut health brand Bio&Me closes fundraise in record time – Bio&Me, created by The Gut Health Doctor, has closed a GBP1.4 million funding round in a record 72 hours. The fundraise was supported by a number of high profile investors including England captain Harry Kane. The funding round was guided by Bio&Me’s lead investor and serial FMCG entrepreneur, Giles Brook.
🌾 Big Bold Health Closes $4 Million Series a Round From S2G Ventures for Development of Innovative Immunity Solutions – Big Bold Health is best known for bringing to market the first US crop of certified organic Himalayan Tartary Buckwheat, a naturally gluten-free plant with unparalleled levels of immune-active plant nutrients. These molecules, which include rutin and quercetin, have been studied for their effects on immune and metabolic function.
🇨🇦 Bioscience startup Mikra secures $8.5 million CAD to launch its nutraceutical gel – Mikra Cellular Sciences hasn’t even released its first product, and it already claims a waitlist of more than 40,000 customers. The bioscience startup claims its orally ingested gel will increase cellular performance, and improve individuals’ “healthspans.” Mikra secured $8.5 million CAD in funding from its parent company, Lifeist Wellness in early March. The money will go towards marketing, product development, and towards supporting pre-clinical genomics trials.
🐟 Finless Foods Raises $34M in Series B Funding to Nationally Launch Plant-Based Tuna in 2022 and Complete Construction of Cell-Cultured Bluefin Tuna Pilot Plant – The Series B funding totaled $34M and was led by Hanwha Solutions. This brings the total raised to nearly $48M since 2017. Additional investors include Japanese seafood company Dainichi Corp, At One Ventures, Olive Tree Capital, Justin Kan, Humboldt, Gaingels, Draper Associates, Sustainable Ocean Alliance and SOSV.
🤰 Delfina Launches Pregnancy Care Platform to Address Maternal Health Crisis – Delfina closed a $5 million raise, led by Story Ventures, to support the launch of a clinical pilot at A&A Women's Health. VC funds including SemperVirens VC, Bread & Butter Ventures, Goodwater Capital, MIT E14 Fund, Metrodora VC, SpringTime Ventures and more participated in Delfina's capital raise, alongside angel investors including former CEO of Reddit Ellen Pao and former Facebook Head of VR Hugo Barra.
🧫 Reproductive health startup readies for delivery – Reproductive support startup Noula Health raised $1.4 million in pre-seed funding led by Muse Capital and Precursor Ventures. In addition to Muse and Precursor, other Noula investors include Crista Galli Ventures, Visible Hands VC, and angel backers Jill Koziol, the founder and CEO of Motherly, and Alex Cohen, the director of product at hybrid primary care clinic Carbon Health.
😃 Y Combinator-Backed Legion Health Secures $2M to Scale Its B2B Mental Health Marketplace – Key strategic angel investors include Erica Johnson, Co-Founder of Modern Health; Ravi Shah, MD, MBA, Chief Innovation Officer of Columbia Psychiatry; Jeffrey Leerink, CEO of SVB Leerink; and Jay Desai, former CEO and Founder of PatientPing (acquired by Bamboo Health). Other investors include Bay Area-based technology accelerator Y Combinator, UpHonest Capital, and Soma Capital.
Some Tweets
I may be 50% Welsh, but I support England at football. Still, it was great to see The Dragons and Gareth Bale do the business last night. Talk about showing up!
Yours in sports,
Ed
—
Ed Rhys
Founder / Skin In The Game
www.skininthegamegroup.com
A favour
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And if you can spare the time, get in touch with your thoughts. Whether founder, investor, or sports industry expert, your input will help me to improve what I’m doing and better serve the Skin In The Game community.
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