Elite sports investors – Food-as-Medicine – Wearable golf technology – Home sleep testing – Neurocognitive conditions – Fermented Beverages – In-game advertising – Liquid Death
Week 55
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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, providing access to the very best deals.
Squad news
Bill Northfield, previously Managing Director at Deutsche Bank, is joining Skin In The Game as an Advisor and investing in the company's future.
Bill worked as an investment banker for Deutsche Bank in London from 1993 to 2015. Since leaving Deutsche Bank, Bill has worked as a consultant for a range of clients including, inter alia, the International Monetary Fund, the UK’s FCDO and World Bank Treasury.
Bill will join Skin In The Game's Advisory Group, currently comprised of Roberto Croci (ex-Managing Director, Microsoft for Startups), Rory Glover, (ex-KKR and Spectrum Equity), Ben Mercer (ex-professional rugby player) and Roddy Scaife (CEO, Zippen). In addition to advising the company, Bill is investing in the business and will join Nathaniel Timbrell-Whittle (Global Head of SSA Syndicate, BNP Paribas) on the cap table.
I first met Bill many moons ago, having started my career in debt capital markets. Years later, he helped put me and Scott together as co-founders. Now he's joining our squad. And we couldn’t be happier!
Deal flow
In this week’s newsletter we have 35 deals across sports & health, from seed, via growth stage, to pre-IPO.
Standouts
🏟 Athletes Unlimited Secures $30 Million In New Funding – Since its inception three years ago, Athletes Unlimited has completed five-week seasons across four sports – softball, lacrosse, basketball, and volleyball. In the AU model, each season is hosted at a single site. This unique model has helped the company reach scale.
🤖 Northwell invests $3M in Hume AI to develop speech, expression understanding for healthcare – The startup builds machine learning tools that aim to understand speech, feelings and nonverbal cues like sighs, laughs and gasps.
🎮 GAMURS closes $12m Series A – GAMURS, the leading gaming, esports, and entertainment media network, closed a $12M Series A funding round. Elysian Park Ventures, the private investment arm affiliated with the Los Angeles Dodgers ownership group, and Cerro Capital co-led the round, with participation from Powerhouse Capital, Aura Ventures, and Artesian.
🏃♂️ INDYA closes a round of more than €1 million including an all-star team of elite sports investors – INDYA, the startup focused on improving the performance of athletes through technology and nutrition, has closed a round of more than €1 million euros.
💰 CRV closes funds – CRV, a venture capital company behind DoorDash, Patreon and digital health companies PillPack and Wheel, has closed two funds totalling $1.5 billion. More than $1 billion of these funds will fund early-stage companies across digital health and other sectors.
🧓 Rippl Raises $32 Million – Rippl, a mental health company focused on caring for seniors with dementia and other neurocognitive conditions, launched with $32 million in seed round funding led by ARCH Venture Partners and General Catalyst. The round also includes investment from GV, F-Prime Capital, and Mass General Brigham Ventures.
🤩 Katalyst Announces $26M Raise - Katalyst, a new standard in health and fitness, announced its Series A fundraise led by Stripes and supported by investors including Incisive Ventures, Unlock Venture Partners, Robert Nelsen, Cindy Crawford, and Rande Gerber.
Best of the rest
🍋 ‘Food-as-Medicine’ Startups Draw Venture Capital – A coalition of investors has pledged $2.5 billion to startups looking to reduce hunger and improve health through food.
🧠 Sonara Health raises $3M for digital methadone management platform – The startup plans to use the seed funding to continue developing its platform and partner with more opioid treatment programs.
⌚️ Wearable Medical Devices Company Acurable Raises €11m in Series A Funding Round – These funds will be used to accelerate the international expansion of its first product AcuPebble SA100 and drive the company towards its ambition to become the preferred solution for home sleep testing worldwide. The investment was led by Kibo Ventures, along with Mundi Ventures, Kindred Capital, and Comprador Holdings among others.
🇨🇭 Scailyte closes Series A funding with a CHF 6 million investment – Scailyte has closed its Series A funding of CHF 6 million from a Swiss family office, Mirabaud bank and previous investors.
🇨🇦 Layla raises funds from BDC and SOFII to grow personalized mental healthcare services – Layla, a human-first, tech-powered mental healthcare service, received funding from BDC Capital's Growth and Transition Capital division and from the Government of Canada's Southern Ontario Fund for Investment in Innovation (SOFII), via the Federal Economic Development Agency for Southern Ontario (FedDev Ontario), delivered by Community Futures Eastern Ontario (CFEO), allowing it to expand its service offerings and scale across Canada.
⛳️ Wearable Golf Technology deWiz Closes Series B Round of Nearly $4 Million – The funding included additional investment from prior backers as well as from retired pros Annika Sörenstam and Vijay Singh, both of whom are already deWiz ambassadors.
🏀 Basketball Analytics Startup ShotQuality Raises $3.2 Million Seed Round Co-Led by KB Partners and TIA Ventures – Last season saw more than 60 NCAA basketball teams subscribe to ShotQuality’s software, which has an algorithm to predict an outcome of a shot.
🎮 Bidstack secures $11m to become best-funded in-game advertising company – Bidstack, the in-game advertising and video game monetisation platform, has raised a total of USD $11 million in a new round of funding. This includes a $6 million strategic investment from digital platform cybersecurity world leader, Irdeto.
🌌 Metaverse Tech Startup Improbable to Raise $100M New Funding at $3.36B Valuation – In April, Improbable completed a $150 million funding round led by Andreessen Horowitz (a16z), and SoftBank Vision Fund 2. The company previously raised $502 million in a Series B round led by SoftBank in 2017, two years after Andreessen Horowitz led a Series A round that raised $20 million.
🇺🇸 Harvard Health Tech Startup Raises Strategic Capital to Expand Risk-Based Contracting – The funding opportunity was driven by Inception Health, the innovation arm of the Froedtert & the Medical College in Wisconsin (MCW) health network, with participation by BrightEdge, the impact investment and venture capital arm of the American Cancer Society, and participation from existing specialist healthcare investors including SixThirty Ventures, Flare Capital, and Trevor Fetter.
🇮🇳 Health-tech startup Humors Tech raises $70k in pre-seed round – We Founder Circle (WFC), an early-stage startup investment platform led by a global community of successful founders and strategic angels, along with the WFC VP has announced leading the pre-seed round worth Rs 54 lakh ($70k) raised by Humors Tech.
⚽️ NHL Owner Agrees to Buy Premier League Club for $134M – The Vegas Golden Knights’ owner has reportedly reached a verbal agreement to buy English soccer’s AFC Bournemouth. Fidelity National Financial chairman Bill Foley is prepared to shell out $134 million for the club.
📱 This Telemedicine just raised $6M for its hybrid approach – Index Health has now raised a $6 million seed round. The Miami-based startup says it offers “data-driven and personalized approach” to a medical treatment called "root cause" or "functional Medicine," using lab tests, specialized staff and personalization.
🇩🇪 Berlin-based Patronus picks up €27 million to support seniors in their daily lives – Elderly care startup Patronus has just scooped up the biggest Series A raise for the sector, bagging €27 million. The Berlin-based team is aiming to support seniors go about their daily lives independently, relieving the burden on carers and relatives.
🤑 Grow Therapy, a platform for private practices, reaches $75M in series B funding – The round was comprised of $45 million in equity and $30 million in venture debt, led by TCV and co-led by Transformation Capital, with support from existing backers SignalFire and SVB.
🧫 Vergent Bioscience raises $21.5 million, reflecting sustained investor interest in life sciences – After a lacklustre start, investors interest rises in medical technology and life science companies amid choppy broader market conditions.
🤖 AI-powered pharmaceutical sourcing platform iethico raises £625K to resolve medicine shortage – According to a study, 90% of pharmacists feel that medicine shortages have increased in the last 12 months, and affect over 20% of prescription drugs. A British tech startup, iethico bridges the shortage gap by delivering insights and forecasting to minimise shortage impact through AI and Machine Learning solutions.
⚽️ Melbourne Victory secure major investment from 777 Partners – Based in Miami, 777 Partners has already built up an investment network of soccer clubs around the world, including Spanish side Sevilla, Italian club Genoa, Brazil’s Vasco da Gama, Belgium’s Standard Liège, and France’s Red Star FC.
🎮 European Video Game Publisher Sells for $642M – Video game publisher MY.GAMES has been sold to Leta Capital managing partner Alexander Chachava in a deal valued at $642 million. The Amsterdam-based company — which has more than 150 games in its portfolio for PC, consoles, and mobile devices — was previously owned by Russian tech giant VK Company.
🏐 Kevin Durant, Billie Jean King Back New Women’s Pro Volleyball League – The Los Angeles-based company, also known as LOVB, raised $16.75 million, with more than a dozen individuals from Kevin Durant and Billie Jean King to Chelsea Handler participating.
💧 Liquid Death Water Startup Valued at $700 Million – 3-year-old startup that is already valued at $700 million following its latest round of financing. The $70 million investment was led by Science Ventures, with participation from other investors including Live Nation Entertainment Inc., music group Swedish House Mafia and comedian Whitney Cummings.
💧 PATH Secures $30M in Funding – PATH, the leading sustainable bottled water brand in the United States, closed a $30M Series A Funding which will fuel the company in its rapid expansion across the country and globally. The funding round is led by Altos Ventures alongside Blue Investment Group; HartBeat Ventures, Kevin Hart's venture fund; Ryan Seacrest; Guy Fieri; and Ninja, among others.
🧃 Pulp Culture Closes $7M Series A, Targets Growth of Full Spectrum (TM) Fermented Beverage Category – Leading fermentation sciences company, Pulp Culture, has closed a $7 million Series A funding round and aims to drive growth of the Full Spectrum (TM) fermented beverage category.
🏌️♂️ The shrewd investments paying rich dividends for Rory McIlroy – Conservative estimates put McIlroy's net worth at around €250m, but his business savvy could see that figure double, if not treble, in the coming years.
🇺🇸 General Mills Backs GrubMarket at More Than $2 Billion Valuation – Tiger Global, Squarepoint, Apeira Capital are among the investor group. The Company is operating at roughly $1.5 billion annual run rate.
🌶 Partake Foods raises $11.5 million in Series B funding – Founded in 2016, Partake Foods’ portfolio is free from the top nine allergens, including wheat, tree nuts, peanuts, milk, eggs, soy, fish, sesame and shellfish.
🏌️♀️ Clubessential Holdings Announces Acquisition of BlueGolf – Clubessential Holdings, the leading provider of club membership management and payment solutions, announced the formation of its Golf and Club Technology business unit in conjunction with its strategic acquisition of BlueGolf, the new industry standard for tournament registration, management and leaderboard software for professional, amateur, junior golf programs and public & private clubs.
🍛 Wicked Kitchen Raises $20M in Bridge Funding While Tripling YoY Sales Growth – New investors include actor and vegan advocate, Woody Harrelson, Ahimsa VC, a fund that invests in startups building a sustainable, humane and healthy world, and NRPT, Thailand's leading food producer and innovator.
Some tweets
P.S.
Watched the Arsenal v Liverpool game in my local pub at the weekend and forgot how great it was to be around other football fans. Arsenal are looking like a proper team this year. Leeds not so much.
Yours in sports,
Ed
—
Ed Rhys
Co-Founder / Skin In The Game
www.skininthegamegroup.com
Join our syndicate
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We co-invest with leading funds, family offices, and corporate venture firms, providing access to the very best deals.
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