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#73 Sports Tech Monthly Round-Up (March)

#73 Sports Tech Monthly Round-Up (March)

April 05, 2024

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

SportsTech programs are coming thick and fast, this week we’re featuring Euroleague Basketball’s FanXP Innovation Challenge which is open for applications. Plus the monthly round up from March of SportsTech dealflow and all the top news as always.

Happy Friday!

Sports Tech Monthly Round-Up

Back with the monthly sports tech investment roundup for March 2024!

The data is a snapshot from our SportsTechDB. with only highlights included in this newsletter edition. Head there for more in-depth data.

March 2024

The biggest month for investment so far this year! March was more than double the investments seen in Jan & Feb. Though not too many major SportsTech M&A deals announced though there was big news in Sports with Liberty Media entering MotoGP, details below.

Geography: North America remains the most active region yet again, with 75% M&A and 43.8% investment activity coming from there. However, Europe has come to light being the 2nd most active region and executing the biggest deal for last month.
Sectors: Solutions ‘For Athletes’ for their activity and performance are hot in the market currently, with 70% of the amount having been invested there.
Top Deals: $65 million in funding for Fit Lab and Johnson Health Tech acquiring the at-home fitness equipment manufacturer Bowflex for $ 37.5 million.

A strong end to Q1 will hopefully set up the year nicely. Plenty of VC activity in as you’ll see in the news below (Centre Court Capital, Arctos etc.) so hopefully that will translate to more dealflow activity soon

Apply for the 2024 Euroleague Basketball FanXP before April 19th, the startup competition you were waiting for!

Euroleague Basketball launches the 2024 Euroleague Basketball FanXP to push the boundaries of innovation in the sports industry, joining forces with SPORTBIZ EUROPE, one of the largest sports industry events, to create a platform that aims to discover cutting-edge solutions.

Projects from all around the globe are welcome, contributing to different categories and competing for a 10.000€ Prize and to test their solutions within the Turkish Airlines EuroLeague and BKT EuroCup environment.

Top News from the World of Sports Tech

MLS Next Pro match on April 2 was the first live sporting event simultaneously translated into multiple languages (English, French, Spanish and Portuguese) using AI, delivered by MLS Innovation Lab startup, Camb.ai.

Mumbai-based venture capital fund Centre Court Capital has rolled out its maiden INR 350 Cr fund with a focus on sports and gaming space, while they had already raised INR 200 Cr in commitments from eminent investors and top athletes.

Private investment firm Arctos, which provides services to sports franchises, announced the final close of Arctos Sports Partners Fund II at over $ 4.1 billion, creating the largest pool of institutional capital dedicated exclusively to the asset class of professional sports.

Home of the F1 British Grand Prix, Silverstone museum, unveiled a sim racing suite equipped with seven simulator rigs, which allow guests to get behind the wheel of a car of their choosing and race around the Silverstone track, comparing times with other sim suites from around the world.

Immersive tech company Cosm, partnered with ESPN to bring live college and pro sports to Cosm’s immersive venues in “Shared Reality” – an experience which bridges the virtual and physical worlds through Cosm’s pioneered technology and 87-foot diameter, 8K+ LED domes – for fans.

Fitness technology company Form to launch smart swimming goggles for $250, which will offer real-time visual feedback – a kind of augmented reality visualization for sports training.

IBM and the Masters Tournament announced that fans this year will have access to shot-by-shot Hole Insights offering detailed analysis for each hole on course and AI-enabled Spanish narration.

Yahoo Sports partnered with OneFootball to create a new hub for comprehensive soccer coverage, spanning news, analysis, and video.

Not Sports Tech but you should know:

GroupM, WPP’s media investment group, announced its commitment to double media investment for annual women’s sports with the creation of a dedicated marketplace as women’s sports are projected to generate more than $1 billion in revenue in 2024, according to Deloitte.

NBA Champion and entrepreneur Kyle Kuzma, to join San Francisco and Tokyo-based early-stage venture capital firm, Scrum Ventures, as an advisor to support sports investments.

Josh Harris and David Blitzer launched the new parent company for their growing portfolio of youth sports properties, Unrivaled Sports, with a strategic investment from the The Chernin Group.

Money Talks:

Greenfly, the leader in powering short-form content workflows for sports, closed a $14 million investment round led by global sports tech investor ADvantage.

Indian booking and community platform for sports venues, Huddle raised $ 850 k (Rs 7 crore) in pre series A round led by Inflection Point Ventures and Sky Impact Capital.

The English Premier League invested an undisclosed amount in English VR firm Rezzil, to work on an EPL-centric VR game, to launch later in 2024.

ATP invested an undisclosed amount in DreamFight, to develop a first-of-its-kind product for the ATP Challenger Tour, leveraging the AI and data capabilities of Tennis Data Innovations (TDI).

Liberty Media Corporation announced the acquisition of 86% of Dorna Sports, the commercial rights holder of Moto GP, in a deal worth about $ 4.5 billion.

Leading provider of player acquisition services, Gambling.com, acquired Freebets.com for somewhere between $37.5 million and $42.5 million.

US-based sports and entertainment consulting firm Elevate announced the acquisition of Fenway Sports Management’s Consulting Group for an undisclosed price.

Latest from our channels

#198 SolidSport: Leading Sports Streaming Platform

Running it back with a reappearance on the show, Andreas talks about the latest updates at SolidSport, how they’re helping sports federations grow their commercial values and revenues from streaming and partnerships related to their media rights, how big tech entering sports broadcasting affects small players and traditional media houses, about the endless possibilities when it comes to collaboration between sports tech companies, what new is coming up at SS and much more. Watch the full episode here.