The 4th Quarter: Latest In Sports Tech This Week, July 12th

The Rise of SailGP, Aquatic Sports Startups , New Job Board

Jul 13, 2024

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A NextGen Aquatic Sports League: Racing Yachts

A billion dollar league is brewing right in front of us and it’s rich people racing yachts. Well kinda. Founded in 2019, SailGP is an international sailing league that features high-speed racing between high-tech F50 catamarans. The league was founded by Olympics sailing legend Russell Coutts and the 5th richest person in the world - Larry Ellison. Taking the sailing world by storm, SailGP has garnered massive viewership - up 24% in its current season compared to last year. Here are some groundbreaking events that SailGP has done:

Range Rover France Sail Grand Prix (Oct, 2022): 1.609M viewers averaged on CBS’ broadcast, becoming the most watched sailing event on US broadcasting in more than 30 years
Spain Sail Grand Prix (Nov, 2023): 1.784M viewers tuned in, the largest broadcast in league history!

Sparks in viewership have caught the attention of savvy investors who are hungry to help grow the league. Early 2022, SailGP’s international teams were purchased for around $5M to $10M; however now, you’re going to need much more cheddar. Avenue Sports Fund - led by Bucks owner Marc Lassry, along with NFL star DeAndre Hopkins, Boxer Deontay Wilder, and others, acquired the U.S. SailGP team for north of $35M! This past month, Mubadala Capital entered the fold by acquiring the first-ever Brazilian SailGP team. We’re very curious to see the valuations of these teams in a year from now.

How have Coutts & Ellison done it? To compete against the rival America’s Cup, the oldest sailing league, SailGP incorporated strategic features:

Multiple Events & Broadcasting Deals

Instead of hosting just one event, SailGP hosts 10-12 sailing events throughout the year, attracting more sponsorships & broadcasting due to continual advertising:

Expanded its partnership with CBS Sports, doubling its coverage to 50+ HRS
Extended its broadcasting partnership with CANAL+ for 5YRS

This league has really caught Sid’s and my attention, and I hope you look into it too. The grand finale of SailGP’s Season in San Francisco, is happening this weekend July 13 - 14th! You can watch it on CBS Sports, the SailGP App, or Youtube. Anchors Aweigh!

Weekly Startup Spotlight

One of the most overlooked areas in sports innovation is Aquatic Sports; here are two groundbreaking early-stage companies building in the space:

Zygo - Slowly becoming the “Peloton of Water”, this team of 4 has solved the physics equation by building headphones designed for underwater. To revolutionize swimming into the modern era, Zygo has created a, $299, state-of-the-art, audio streaming technology that allows users to seamlessly connect to athlete’s smartphones. Pairing the hardware with an innovative software solution, Zygo App, swimmers can access guided aqua workouts, tempo lap training, a dynamic leaderboard, and a one-way walkie-talkie communication for coaching. Founded out of Los Angeles with backing from Gold Medal, British Triathlon Olympian, Alistair Brownlee, this is definitely a company to watch and a product to try for any frequent pool-goers.
- Founders: Sheera Goren, Charlie Melvoin
- Funding: Raised a total of $4M with a most recent $2.5M Seed Round in 2022 led by British Olympian, Alistair Brownlee, and participation from Five Four Ventures

SwimIntel AI - Built by a 47 year-old SaaS entrepreneur who wanted to help his daughter become a better swimmer, Jamie Bailey built SwimIntel’s PredictAI. PredictAI is not merely a tool to track analytics for swimmers, but rather a piece of software that’s focused on helping prospective students pick the “best fit” for a collegiate program to swim at. The AI model is trained on a historical data set from 15,000+ college swimmers from 2,500+ clubs. The output tells a swimmer how well they will progress at a specific college environment given accomplishments, stats, and academic background. This is the one-stop shop for swimmers looking to recruit, families, and college coaches.
- Founders: Jamie Bailey
- Funding: Completely Bootstrapped - Jamie claims he’s unlikely to sell any of his 100% ownership stake with his product generating revenue since its first day live!

Sports-Tech Market Activity: Investors & Deals

Venture Capital

Recast, a 'self-serve fintech platform’ that provides sports content creators the ability to scale revenue through low customer acquisition costs, raised $5M in funding (July 9th)
- Advancing its smart payment platform, extending capabilities beyond video to any digital assets, and integrating multiple digital currencies
- Investment was led by Morpheus Ventures; other investors include Airstream Ventures and Cooley [SportsPro]

Roga, a developer of therapeutic wearables to assist with wellbeing, reducing severe stress & burnout, raised $1.2M in Pre-seed funding (July 10th)
- Finalizing development of device, investing in manufacturing & sales among other divisions
- Investors include Exceptional Ventures, ODX by On Deck, Minded Ventures, and others [FinSMEs]

Athletic Brewing, a craft brewer that offers alternative non-alcoholic beverages targeted towards health-conscious consumers raised $50M in funding (July 9th)
- Planning to renovate San Diego brewing facility; expecting to double U.S. brewing capacity and leverage tech and digital marketing internationally
- Investment was led by General Atlantic and existing investors [Athletech]

GymDesk, a management software company that streamlines operations processes for martial arts gyms and fitness studios, raised $32M in Growth funding (July 9th)
- Developing range of B2B UI solutions and expanding verticals for growing customer base
- Investment was led by Five Elms Capital [Athletech]

Volley, a creator of voice AI games including Wheel of Fortune, Jeopardy for mobile, TV, and smart speakers, raised $55M in Series C funding (July 9th)
- Applying LLMs to delve into new categories of AI-powered games
- Investment was led by Lightspeed and Microsoft’s M12 Ventures; other investors include General Catalyst, BITKRAFT, and others [VentureBeat]

M&A and Investments

Paramount and Skydance set to officially merge following period of uncertainty (June 8th)
- $8.4B merger; $2B reduction in costs unlikely to affect sports-focused endeavors
- RedBird, BofA securities, Moelis & Co, and Raine Group acted as financial advisors for the transaction [Sportico]

Penn Entertainment nearing possible joint acquisition by gaming & hospitality Boyd Gaming & sports-betting Flutter Entertainment (July 5th)
- Boyd’s reportedly bid over $9B back in June; Flutter to takeover ESPN BET, Boyd to takeover retail gambling business [iGaming Business]

Infinite Reality raised $350M, alongside acquisition of metaverse infrastructure company Landvault (July 9th)
- Valuing the company at approximately $5.1B
- Planning to go public in the US via delayed ‘early 2024’ SPAC [VentureBeat]

Kindred Concepts’ F1 Arcade racing simulator venue for fans raises $130M in growth financing (July 11th)
- Opening up Washington DC site, followed by flagship Las Vegas venue in 2025
- Backers include Cheyne Capital, Liberty Media Corporation, Permira Credit, and OakNorth [Houlihan Lokey]

Richard Seymour reportedly in talks to join former Patriots teammate Tom Brady in acquisition of stake in Raiders alongside others (July 9th)
- Minority acquisition of 10.4% if approved by 24 votes from current NFL owners [BleacherReport]

Newcastle United’s fan-favorites Amanda Staveley and Mehrdad Ghodoussi set to leave the English club by selling their current stake (July 10th)
- Remaining 6% stake likely to be bought out by Saudi Public Investment Fund
- Couple played key role in Saudi PIF’s 80% stake, £300M takeover of club back in 2021 [SportBible]

Fenway Sports Group in early-stage talks to acquire French League 2 football (soccer) club FC Bordeaux (July 10th)
- Proposed majority stake acquisition for possible distressed asset as relegation woes arise
- FSG’s extensive sports portfolio include Liverpool FC, Red Sox, Pittsburgh Penguins among others [SportsPro]

Sports betting platform ZeroFlucs acquired by hotel and casino Caesars Entertainment (July 5th)
- Integrating tech to enhance sportsbook offerings; including pricing offerings and same-game parlays [GamingAmerica]

Sports media agency TGI Sport acquires virtual advertising company Supponor for €100 million ($108 million) amid growing market in sports (July 11th)
- Following 18% stake investment back in 2019 as first minority stakeholder [Sportico]

PE firm Apax Partners concludes ownership in sports-data firm Genius Sports through final sale of 10% stake (July 10th)
- Acquired majority stake in 2018, supplying up to $35M in capital for expansion [Sportico]

Photo: PFL will launch PFL Africa in the second quarter of 2025

Strategic Ventures

NBA reportedly finalize 11 year, $76B media rights deals with ESPN, NBC, Amazon (July 10th)
- Contracts worth $2.6B, $2.5B, $1.8B, respectively; TNT fails to match bids [Front Office Sports]

Professional Fighters League (PFL) launches Africa-based league with PE backing from African-exclusive Helios Investment Partners (July 10th)
- Former UFC fighter, Francis Ngannou, admitted as Chairman and minority owner
- Helios Sports & Entertainment portfolio includes NBA Africa and the Basketball Africa League [SportCal]

Warner Bros, Snapchat delve into 2-year partnership to provide sports content and coverage ahead of The Olympics (July 4th)
- ‘Eurosport’–Official Olympics sports, athlete, and fan highlights and content
- ‘Beyond the Olympics’– Localized tennis, soccer, combat sports content within (UK & France)
- ‘TNT Sports’ on Snapchat– Champions League, Europa League, and others (UK) [BroadcastNow]

UEFA expands partnership with sports-data company Sportsradar for 3-year deal for sportsbook data (July 11th)
- Includes exclusive rights to distribute gambling data for all covered events through the 2026-27 season
- Permitted to sell competitor Genius Sports’ collected player data due to Genius Sports & UEFA’s recent partnership [Sportico]

TMRW Sports partners with International Golf Federation to harness tech for golf participation growth (July 9th)
- Eyeing possible 2025 Olympics Esports Games as an additional potential contributor to tech-infused golf ambitions [Golf Business News]

Accelerators

NBC's sports tech accelerator adds University of Notre Dame as partner ahead of its 5th cohort (July 8th)
- Joining NBCUniversal SportsTech consortium, alongside Premier League, Nascar, the PGA Tour
- Ten startups selected to receive $50,000; applications to open on July 15th for interested sportstech founders (apply here) [SportsPro]

Anomaly Games, a gaming startup that merges Web3 with social finance for immersive experiences, was admitted into Google for Startups Cloud Program (July 11th)
- Previously announced a Pre-seed funding round of $1.45M, backed by Decasonic, Shima Capital, Break Orbit, and others [VentureBeat]