#113 🚀 Deals, Funds, Programs: SportsTech takes off in 2025

News, features & insights from the world of Sports Tech & Biz. Every Week.

We spent the last couple of weeks on our predictions, this week we focus on our upcoming actions. Sharing an outline of our broad content plans for the year. Is a pretty full calendar.

There is so much happening in the Sports Tech ecosystem at the start of 2025,

SportsTechX in 2025: Ready to collaborate?

Lots happening in Sports Tech at the moment:

• Multi-billion dollar investment rounds: Infinite Reality

• New fund announcements: Scrum Ventures & AO Ventures 

• New innovation programs: FIFA

• Fresh cohorts AO Startups

• and Applications open for new ones: Apex & Barça Innovation Hub 

There's a real buzz around the ecosystem and we’re just about 3 weeks into the year. January has gotten off to a quick start.

Keeping with that busy theme, SportsTechX is gearing up for a big one. Here’s our calendar for major publications in 2025, especially Reports and our new Learning offering- Sports Tech Bootcamp.

💡 Upcoming Reports Schedule

Our usual, in-depth data driven content, published in a brand new format. More on that later. Here’s the list:

• February: Indian Sports Tech & Biz Report

• March: Women’s Sports Tech Report

• April: Global Sports Tech Ecosystem Report 2025

• June: Football Tech Report

• September: Stadium Tech Report

• November: Global Sports Tech VC Report 2025

🤓 Sports Tech Bootcamp Schedule

A Certificate course in Sports Innovation and Technology, designed for those looking to advance their career sports or keep up to date with the highly dynamic sports innovation & investment landscape.

• May: Sports Tech Bootcamp S1

• August: Sports Tech Founders Bootcamp S2

• October: Sports Tech Bootcamp S3

Plenty of opportunities for collaboration. If interested, get in touch: either as a reply to this email or directly to [email protected].

Top News from the World of Sports Tech & Biz

🎾 More from Tennis Australia, they’re really keeping busy:

• They announced the launch of Beyond Tennis powered by Infosys, a generative AI tennis league with AI players and tournaments, that blends sport, AI, social media, and storytelling.

• AO Startups welcomed 12 new startups to their 2025 cohort, a record number.

⚽ And from the KINGS LEAGUE:

• Juventus has become the first club to join a team registered in the Kings League Italy championship. Thanks to an exclusive collaboration with Zebras FC, the team chaired by Stardust creator and Bianconero fan Luca Campolunghi will take part in the Kings League Italy, scheduled for the coming weeks.

• They launched a OneFootball channel to reach football fans worldwide, while creating new opportunities for brands to connect with a highly engaged, digital-first football audience.

🚀 These are Inviting startup applications:

• Season 3 of the APEX Impact Program (AIP) is now open. Aiming to empower passionate founders building innovative early stage technologies, whose goal is to positively influence the future of Sports, Media, & Entertainment. 

• The Barça Start Up Challenge powered by NOBA is back, looking for startups in Sustainability, Smart facilities, Fan engagement, Entertainment, Sports science and performance and Health and wellness. Applications right here

🏂 The X Games, after closing a streaming rights deal with Roku, is taking another leap into the digital future by partnering with Google on a new AI judging technology for some ski and snowboard events.

💪🏽 Bundesliga’s debut on Roblox platform scored 1.3 million visits over the first weekend. DFL also launched an exclusive Roblox Bundesliga campaign with Build a Rocket.

⚡ Other highlights:

• Indian food delivery mega app Swiggy expanded into the sports industry with the launch of Swiggy Sports. The new subsidiary will focus on team ownership, talent development, event organisation, facility management, broadcasting, and securing sponsorship rights.

• FanCode secured an exclusive multi-year deal to stream PGA Tour events in India, enhancing access to over 40 prestigious golf tournaments annually.

• The UFC kicked off its 2025 Pay-Per-View run at the brand new Intuit Dome in Los Angeles, featuring two thrilling championship bouts. 

• Meta will be releasing Oakley-branded smart glasses later this year. The Oakley-branded smart glasses, dubbed “Supernova 2”, are based on Sphaera glasses. The Supernova 2 will have the camera in the center of the frame rather than on the side.

• Haas appointed Laura Müller as F1's first female race engineer.

• NASCAR announced plans to launch a new FAST (Free Ad-Supported Television) Channel called the NASCAR Channel exclusively on Tubi. 

Money Talks:

💸 Sixth Street launched a new multi-club women’s soccer org called Bay Collective. The collective aims to foster growth in women’s soccer by investing in clubs worldwide while also creating opportunities to further capitalize on the women’s game.

💸 Real Madrid became the first football club to generate more than 1 Billion Euros in annual revenue, according to analysis by Deloitte.

💰 Funding Rounds:

• Nazara Technologies announced its plans to secure Rs 495 crore ($57 million) through a 5.4% stake sale to Axana Estates, an entity established by the company's current investors. 

• Men in Blazers Media Network announced the closing of a $15 million Series A fundraising round, led by Avenue Sports Fund.

• A little over a year after its launch, SportAI secured double soft-funding of NOK 37 million ($3.2 m) after landing a major customer.

• The PGA Tour invested in Conectd Golf for sensor-embedded golf putter technology. As part of the deal, CONECTD Golf will also be designated the “official putting technology of the PGA Tour”.

🤝 Acquisitions:

• Next League announced the acquisition of Edge3, an athlete intelligence and advisory firm that recently partnered with IBM to leverage Watsonx AI to create a data-driven college recruiting service. 

• Optus, Australia's second-largest telecom carrier, in talks to sell its sports streaming platform Optus Sport to media house Nine Entertainment. The sale would allow Nine's streaming service Stan to stream Premier League matches. 

• Texas-based company, Presidio Investors, acquired 100 per cent of Serie A side Hellas Verona, completing a takeover from former owner Maurizio Setti.

• North American actors Ryan Reynolds, Rob McElhenney add Bogotá team to their soccer portfolio, reportedly having paid over $30 million for the team, which ranked 13th out of 20 in the 2024 Colombian league phase.

Recap from our content archive

🔙 STX Article: Innovative Fan Engagement- The Future of Sports in the Metaverse, Web3, and Beyond

✅ STX Monthly: Last month’s sports tech dealflow, in case you missed it.

💪🏽 SportsTech AllStars Recap: Global Sports Tech VC Report series