Human performance – Second-highest NBA team sale in history – Computer vision-assisted strength training – Psychedelic therapy – DApp incubators – Photodetectors – Medical AI innovation
Week 53
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Skin In The Game is an FCA regulated investment syndicate connecting angel investors with groundbreaking startups in sports & health.
We co-invest with leading funds, family offices, and corporate venture firms, leveraging their deep expertise and financial firepower to access the best deals.
Confessions
Great to be featured in Northridge Law’s quarterly newsletter, sharing our thoughts on sports as an incubator for emerging technologies that can scale across industries.
Technology transfer is a key part of our investment thesis and something that’s often overlooked by investors who don’t understand the significance of sports as a driver of meaningful innovation.
The guys at Northridge are close friends of ours and Northridge Track is a very cool initiative, so we’re delighted to contribute.
Deal flow
In this week’s newsletter we have 26 deals across sports & health, from seed, via growth stage, to pre-IPO.
Standouts
🙌 Momentous Closes $6.5M Series A – Momentous, a human performance company that focuses on supplementation and nutrition, closed a $6.5 million Series A led by DSM Venturing.
🇫🇮 Photodetector Startup ElFys raises €3M to Meet Wearables Demand – Photodetector applications include camera image sensors, fiber optic links, blood particle analyzers, spectrometers, LiDARs and encoders, medical computed tomography imaging, and airport X-ray security scanners. Led by Samsung Venture Investment, the second round of financing includes the participation of existing investors like Voima Ventures and Oura Health.
🍄 Healing Maps Raises $1M – HealingMaps, an informative psychedelic therapy search site, closed of a seed round for a total $1 million coming from eight investors including Phyto Partners and Ambria Capital.
🤩 GGWP Academy raises $1.125M for influencer marketing for games and esports – GGWP Academy is an e-learning platform that helps gamers earn and learn, and 50-plus global brands tap top talent. And now it is pushing into the US market. The investors include Adidas’ founder Adi Dassler’s family, Flying Fox Ventures, Scale Investors and Euphemia as well as leAD Sports and Startmate accelerators.
⌚️ Any Distance raises $1.5M to build social activity tracking for everyone – Its new activity tracking platform for iPhone and Apple Watch gamifies and inspires movement of all kinds. The round was led by Bungalow Capital with participation from Overline, Fitt Insider, Shorewind Capital, OliveX, and The Gramercy Fund. Also joining are more than 30 angel investors.
💪 Perch Raises $4M for 3D Strength Tracking – The computer vision-assisted strength training platform raised $4M in a funding round. Reading real-time data from a weight rack-affixed 3D camera, its app crunches VBT-specific data for sets, reps, velocity, and power output.
🧠 J Balvin enters the digital wellness space with the launch of a bilingual mental health app – OYE has been able to garner support in the form of a $4.1 million pre-seed round with participation from MasterClass and Outlier.org co-founder Aaron Rasmussen, Collab Fund, 17Sigma, Expa, GreyMatter, Propeller Ventures, Gaingels, Alley Corp CEO Kevin Ryan, former Amazon executive Jeff Wilke, Future Ventures co-founder Maryanna Saenko and Coursera CEO Jeff Maggioncalda.
🔥 Dame Products expands sexual wellness product line following $7M raise – Dame was founded in 2014 by CEO Alexandra Fine, who initially wanted to be a sex therapist. She kicked off the company with $575,000 from an Indiegogo campaign and turned Dame into a profitable business that was bootstrapped until December 2020. That was when Fine raised $4 million to expand the team and product line.
Best of the rest
🏀 Phoenix Suns Sale Could Top $2.5B – The projected figure would be around eight times the team’s 2021-22 revenue. It would be the second-highest NBA team sale in history. Joseph Tsai bought the Brooklyn Nets for $3.2 billion in 2019. The most recent NBA team sale, Alex Rodriguez and Marc Lore’s 2021 purchase of the Minnesota Timberwolves, banked $1.5 billion.
🪑 SeatGeek Bucks Late-Stage Funding Trend – SeatGeek recently raised $238 million in Series E financing at a $1 billion pre-money valuation. Accel led the round with a $100 million investment. Wellington Management, Arctos Sports Partners and Utah Jazz founder Ryan Smith also participated.
🇬🇧 UK Startup Hadean raises a $30M Series A to power the metaverse – London-based deep tech start-up, Hadean has secured $30 million in funding to build out its record-breaking metaverse infrastructure technology, already supporting virtual worlds in immersive entertainment and enterprise digital twins.
💆♀️ Health and wellness startup Spa Space raises $10.2M – Health and wellness startup Spa Space has raised its largest investment yet with $10.2 million from private equity firm CI Capital Partners.
🇳🇬 Nigeria’s YC-backed Remedial Health raises $4.4M seed funding – Early this year, Nigerian health tech startup Remedial Health announced plans to scale within the West African country, digitizing pharmacies and bringing efficiency in the pharmaceutical supply chain after raising pre-seed funding. The latest round was led by Global Ventures, the VC firm that co-led its pre-seed round
🦵 Embody Closes $10.4 Million Series C – Embody, a Darpa-funded maker of medical devices to heal soft tissues, has closed a $10.4 million Series C funding round led by Genesis Innovation Group‘s specialized fund called cultivate (MD).
💵 Therabody raises $165M – The round was led by private equity firm North Castle Partners and included investment from a broad array of celebrities, including the comedian Kevin Hart’s Hartbeat Ventures and the model Karlie Kloss.
🌌 Series A Funding Round for Metaverse Company Vulcan Forged – Vulcan Forged, a leading blockchain game studio and decentralized application incubator, has secured Series A funding led by SkyBridge Capital.
🧠 Limitless Minds Raises $2.5 Million Seed Round to Make Mindset Training More Accessible – Limitless Minds is a digital mental fitness company providing transformational coaching and on-demand mindset training. The seed round was led by Greg Williams, Co-Founder & CEO at Acrisure and venture capital firms Future Labs Capital and InterstateFusion.
💻 Abler raises €3.7m from Frumtak Ventures – Abler, a sports management technology company and creator of Sportabler, has raised €3.7 million in post-seed funding from Icelandic VC firm Frumtak Ventures. Abler simplifies the complexities of sports participation by digitising and greatly increasing efficiency in the management and facilitation of organised sports programs.
👨👨👦👦 Mental-health startup Hopscotch raised $8 million from investors like Greycroft and Inspired Capital – Hopscotch is a full-service telehealth platform that provides in-network mental health care for children and teenagers.
👩⚕️ Kate Farms closes $75 million Series C – Kate Farms produces plant-based organic and clinically demonstrated formulas for tube and oral feeding to help nourish those with chronic illnesses and acute conditions. The round was led by Novo Holdings and included include current investors Kaiser Permanente Ventures, Goldman Sachs Asset Management, and Main Street Advisors.
🇦🇺 Sonder raises AU$35m in Series B funding – The wellbeing and safety company closed a AU$35 million Series B funding round, led by Blackbird Ventures. Sonder is on a mission to reduce the complexity of the healthcare landscape by providing a single entry point for employee and student care.
🇺🇸 Zócalo Health raises $5M seed round to expand services for Latino patients – The funding will support the startup's launch in California, Washington and Texas.
💰 Limbo is tackling obesity with a pair of wearables and decades of physiology – Limbo, a New York, London and Cork-based startup is announcing a $6 million seed raise, building a subscription weight management business to target the obesity crisis.
🌍 OurCrowd announces new $200M Global Health Equity Fund – While the fund’s focus is on healthcare, management is taking a wider view here that goes beyond startups in the medical field, including other areas that can also have a more indirect impact on health, such as energy and agriculture.
🇺🇸Surge Raises $2.6M and Secures Exclusive Licensing Agreement with Stanford to Make Surgeries Safer – Biotech and medical AI innovator Surge closed a $2.6 million round co-led by HCVC, a global early-stage fund dedicated to high-potential technology startups, and Boutique Venture Partners, a leading fund based in the Silicon Valley.
🚲 UK-based custom bike maker Spoon Group ramps £740K to create first custom performance e-bike – After a £300k private round, the long-term debt partner and institutional investor FSE Group matched funding through its Enterprise M3 initiative, bringing the total raised to £740k.
Some tweets
P.S.
After 25-years and 1,750 competitive tennis matches, Roger Federer has hung up his racket. Goodbye Fed, and thank you. It’s been beautiful.
Yours in sports,
Ed
—
Ed Rhys
Co-Founder / Skin In The Game
www.skininthegamegroup.com
Join our syndicate
If you find this newsletter useful, consider joining our FCA regulated investment syndicate connecting angel investors with groundbreaking startups in sports & health.
We co-invest with leading funds, family offices, and corporate venture firms, leveraging their deep expertise and financial firepower to access the best deals.
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.