Self-actualisation – Weighted training gloves – Smart basketball hoop – Plant-based protein beverages – Evidence-based clinical nutrition – Polygenic risk scores – Oral microbiome testing
Week 50
Join our Investment Syndicate
Skin In The Game is an FCA regulated investment syndicate connecting investors with groundbreaking startups in sports, health & wellness. We’re leveraging our network of industry experts to de-risk investments.
It’s free to join and members get access to live investment opportunities, insights on investing in sports, health & wellness from our community of domain experts, and access to our private events.
Squad updates
We’re on a mission to promote investment in sports, health & wellness startups via our global network of industry experts. So we’re absolutely stoked to announce a new addition to our advisory squad.
Roddy Scaife has joined Skin In The Game’s advisory group.
Roddy is a commercial product leader with significant startup experience building consumer tech products for marketplaces, fintechs, sportstechs, and SaaS. He's currently CEO at Zippen, having previously been Head of Product at Esquared Fitness, a private equity backed FitTech business.
We've known (and worked with) Roddy for a long time. He's THE MAN when it comes to building market-leading tech products, and we will be working closely with him to ensure that investors in our syndicate get the user experience they deserve.
Roddy is obsessed with cricket, so we're looking forward to bowling some unplayable yorkers at him in the weeks and months ahead...
Confessions
Scott and I recently headed back down to Devon to kick off our fundraise for Skin In The Game.
We timed the trip beautifully… Salcombe was 10 degrees cooler than the rest of the country during a pretty intense heatwave, our fridge was stocked to the gills with red meat from the farm shop down the road (and a few beers chilling alongside). We went to extreme lengths to ensure operational continuity and peak productivity whilst on manoeuvres in the South Hams, taking a coffee machine with us!
In case you’re wondering, we’re raising capital to accelerate Skin In The Game and bring more leaders (and friends) from sports and health into our network. Backers of our business are more than silent partners. Our existing investors will tell you that everything we do is built around friendship, intellectual curiosity, and personal development. We talk a lot. We hang out. We solve problems together, financial, physical, personal.
Skin In The Game isn’t just an investment syndicate – it’s a platform for self-actualisation. If that resonates, let’s have a conversation about taking on the world of sports investing together!
Deal Flow
In this week’s newsletter we have 30 deals across sports, health & wellness.
Sports
🏀 Paradigm Sports Leads Investment in Huupe – Huupe, the world's first smart basketball hoop, allows you to train like a pro, track your performance and compete against other basketball players anywhere in the world.
⚽️ Playmaker Capital Accelerates Its Push Into Mexican and Us Hispanic Sports Markets With Acquisition of Sports Media Publisher JuanFutbol – JuanFutbol supplements Playmaker’s growing portfolio of premier soccer-focused digital assets; bolsters branded content and sponsored campaign capabilities; strengthens social media and short-form video prowess; increases exposure to the Mexican and US Hispanic sports markets.
⚽️ Gotham FC add Sue Bird and Eli Manning as investors – WNBA icon Sue Bird and former NFL star Eli Manning have joined the ownership group of NWSL club NJ/NY Gotham FC.
🎮 Faze Clan goes public in $725m SPAC merger – Faze Clan’s quest to go public has been completed after the esports giant completed its merger with the B. Riley Principal 150 Merger Corp SPAC.
🕶 Virtual Reality Basketball App Gym Class Raises $8 Million Seed as Sports VR Gaming Space Continues to Grow – Gym Class allows those with a Quest VR headset to play online basketball with up to eight other people from around the world. Players control their full-body avatars through their own physical movements and hold the Quest controller to shoot, pass, dribble and dunk on customizable digital courts that users can design themselves.
💪 Former NBA Star Plans $1B Investment Fund For Sports Real Estate, Health – Former NBA star Metta Sandiford-Artest is launching an investment fund that aims to raise $1B and target several sectors, including real estate.
🏈 Lewis Hamilton acquires minority stake in Denver Broncos – The seven-time world champion has teamed up with the Walton-Penner Family Ownership Group, which acquired the Broncos in a reported $4.65 billion takeover in June.
🎟 FanRally raises $3m to bolster subscription ticketing marketplace – FanRally offers subscription memberships that replace traditional match tickets with reservations, with users paying a monthly fee priced at between 30 to 60% of a season ticket. FanRally has secured partnerships with teams across the NBA, MLB, the NHL, and US college athletic programmes.
⚽️ CVC to Receive $505M Loan for French Soccer Investment – Private equity firm CVC Capital Partners will receive a loan of $505 million from HPS Investment Partners to facilitate its investment in French professional soccer. In March, CVC acquired a 13% stake in Ligue 1’s media rights business for $1.5 billion.
🦄 Fantasy Sports Company Valued at $485M – Fantasy sports company Underdog has raised $35 million in Series B funding, valuing the business at $485 million. BlackRock, the world’s largest asset manager with $9.57 trillion in assets under management, participated in the round, which included sports betting and tech-focused VC firm Acies Investments.
⚽️ Barcelona Sells 25% Stake in Media Arm for $102M – FC Barcelona has struck a deal to sell a 24.5% stake in Barca Studios, the club’s media production arm, to blockchain-based fan engagement company Socios.com for $102 million.
🧤 PowerHandz Receives Multimillion Dollar Investment From Vanguard – PowerHandz is best known for its namesake weighted training gloves that are used for both athlete training and physical rehabilitation. Among the other weighted products are a powersuit and a training basketball. Charlotte Hornets All-Star guard LaMelo Ball, who was 2020–21 NBA Rookie of the Year, is a general partner of the company and has launched his own 1Ball-branded line of products.
Wellness & Fitness
🥤 DTC startup EVO raises $600K in East Ventures-led Seed funding round – Evo is a Direct-to-Consumer health and wellness brand that offers quality supplements and hair products.
🍛 Meati Foods Secures $150M in Series C Funding – The money will help to expand the production and accessibility of the company's popular products as they aim to become the US market share leader in plant-based meat by 2025.
🧃 OWYN Announces Funding Round Led by Purchase Capital to Accelerate National Expansion – OWYN (Only What You Need) is a leading brand in plant-based protein beverages and other functional nutrition products.
🇮🇪 Cork-based Gym+Coffee taps extra €17m funding – Launched in 2017 by Cork native Niall Horgan, athleisure brand Gym+Coffee counts Irish rugby legend, Brian O'Driscoll, as an early investor with celebrities like musician Bressie and UK fitness star Joe Wicks as fans of the brand.
💪 SeventySix Capital Invests in Fitness Tech Company ASENSEI – ASENSEI offers a cross-platform software development kit that adds motion capture to existing products with only a few lines of code. A patented approach to understanding posture and movement allows ASENSEI to add new exercises and movements in a matter of hours.
Health
🇪🇪 Estonian healthtech startup raises €2.3M for polygenic risk score-based genetic tests to estimate the risk of common cancers – Antegenes develops and implements advanced genetic tests based on polygenic risk scores technology for precision prevention of major complex diseases.
👩⚕️ Summer Health closes $7.5M Seed Round from Sequoia and Lux – Summer Health believes every American should have a phone number in their pocket they can text and get access to medical care within 15 minutes. It's building a new front door to healthcare, starting with pediatrics, by offering message-based concierge services for urgent care and developmental care.
😤 Seattle startup that sells air purification tech powered by ultraviolet light raises $2.3M – Violett has developed hospital-grade air purification units that maximize UVC exposure using a cyclone pattern to disinfect air in a single pass.
🙍♀️ Caraway collects $11M seed for women-focused virtual care – Focused on women in college, Caraway uses a team-based approach to offer virtual mental, reproductive and physical care through an app. It'll accept insurance and charge a $19.99 per month membership fee.
🇺🇸 Amazon and One Medical sign an agreement for Amazon to acquire One Medical – One Medical is a US primary care organisation on a mission to make quality healthcare more affordable, accessible, and enjoyable through a seamless combination of in-person, digital, and virtual care services.
🌶 FemTec Health Acquires Nutrimedy, Adds Personalized Nutrition to Women's Health Suite – Nutrimedy is an evidence-based clinical nutrition platform that provides support and guidance for over 50 medical conditions.
🤰 FemTec Health Acquires Ava AG, Reproductive Monitoring Pioneer – FemTec Health, the health and beauty sciences company and creator of the Awesome Woman comprehensive healthcare experience, has acquired Ava, a digital diagnostics and therapeutics company specializing in women's reproductive health. Backed by rigorous clinical trials, Ava has helped over 70,000 women get pregnant.
👵 Care home comparison Lottie site earns £6m investment – The funding will allow Lottie to expand its platform nationally, invest in new digital tools for care providers, strengthen its presence in the retirement living sector and accelerate the growth of its eldercare employee benefit portal, Seniorcare.
📱 Fitterfly raises $12 million from Amazon Smbhav Venture Fund and others – Fitterfly is a. digital therapeutic startup Fitterfly with focus on diabetes management.
🦷 Bristle polishes off $3M seed for oral health – Bristle offers an at-home test designed to assess the oral microbiome, the combination of fungi and bacteria thought to be linked with conditions including gum inflammation, bad breath and tooth decay.
🙍♂️ YourChoice banks $15M for male birth control – When the YourChoice team first got to work on a new kind of birth control back in 2018, they intended to create a side-effect-free women's contraceptive. But fast-forward several years and they realized the drug they were designing could be taken by men.
👟 Kizik Announces $20 Million Series B Funding Round – The Kizik brand uses HandsFree Labs’ portfolio of more than 100 patents and patents pending to create comfortable and stylish shoes for men and women – and soon kids.
Some Tweets
P.S.
Anyone else slightly disbelieving of the fact that the Premier League soap opera is kicking off again? Goodbye weekend…
Yours in sports,
Ed
—
Ed Rhys
Co-Founder / Skin In The Game
www.skininthegamegroup.com
Join our Investment Syndicate
If you find this newsletter useful, consider joining our FCA regulated investment syndicate connecting investors with groundbreaking startups in sports, health & wellness.
It’s free to join and members get access to live investment opportunities, insights on investing in sports, health & wellness from our community of industry experts, and access to our private events.
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.