SportsTech Allstars for November-December: VC’s in SportsTech

December 26, 2023

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

We’ve christened 2023 ‘The Year of Consolidation’. Not just for the SportsTech industry, it’s been that at SportsTechX as well.  

A couple of things we’re proud of:

  • Shifting to a weekly newsletter, from a monthly one, while growing our reader base to 16k+ SportsTech aficionados (yes, including you)

  • Bringing 40 industry leaders on our podcast, from startups to investors to top sports orgs

  • Our first ever SportsTechX Startup Spotlight, won by Mingle Sport, featured in our latest VC Report

Throw in an expanded team, plenty of travel + quite a few interesting deals & projects done. It’s been a good year. And we have plenty lined up for 2024!

But before that, we take a little break. This will be our last newsletter for 2023 before we take some time off to spend time with family.

From Team SportsTechX, wish you and your loved ones a very Merry Christmas and great start to the New Year 

Plenty of good food & drink, late night (quite competitive) word games and hopefully some good Boxing Day football is the Christmas plan that I’m really looking forward to. Hope yours has plenty of good vibes as well, see you in ’24

Feature Story

SportsTech Allstars for November-December: VC’s in SportsTech

While preparing our Global SportsTech VC Report 2023, a definitive compilation of Investment Data from the Sports Tech Ecosystem, we spent time speaking with a few of the new entrants to the SportsTech investment game in 2023. 

We get their perspective on ‘Why now’ in SportsTech, the latest trends they’re most excited about and what they believe 2024 and beyond will look like.

Here’s a recap of our conversations with 3 VCs and 1 Accelerator in SportsTech from November & December:

GO PRO = PRO (GSTVCR23 + SportsTechDB)

No, this isn’t about a camera.

The PRO Edition of the Global SportsTech Report is packed with 17 additional pages of data & insights. That’s nearly half the free LITE edition added on. Including some particularly interesting bits:

  • Top 5 funded companies in all 8 sub-sectors

  • Investment overviews by Region: North America, APAC, Europe & ‘Rest of World’ (basically South America & Africa)

  • Most active investors in SportsTech

  • Investments volume & amount by Deal Size

  • Summary of M&A Dealflow

  • Summary of Unicors & IPOs

  • Sub-sector snapshots for all 8 sub-sectors 

Add on a FREE 1 year Access to SportsTechDB with it’s 6k+ SportsTech startups, powerful filters & interactive infographics and that’s a solid deal!

Offer is only on until Dec 31. So get in before 2023 goes out.

Top News from the World of SportsTech

  Amazon is looking to further expand it’s Prime Video Sports offering by a) negotiating a potential major investment in Diamond Sports Group, granting access to local broadcasts for 40 US sports teams across MLB, NBA, and NHL. And b) Wibledon in Germany & Austria.

 Athlete-led VC firm The Players Fund bolsters its ranks with Olympians Jessica Ennis-Hill and Allyson Felix, plus soccer stars Nikita Parris and Danielle Carter, in a push for female athlete empowerment through investment.

 Australia’s SportsTech industry gets a boost with a $2.27 million funding grant to train future SportsTech data scientists..

 Wilson Golf drives into the future with an AI-powered club fitting that analyzes every swing in real-time for a personalized, game-changing experience.

Not SportsTech but you should know:

 Golden State Warriors with another dub as the NBA’s most valuable team. They joined the Knicks and Lakers in the $7 billion club as average valuations soared by 33% in a record-breaking 2023 for NBA teams. 

The PGA Tour is nearing a $3 billion investment deal with potential US investors, amid ongoing negotiations with the Saudi Arabian PIF and the impending merger with LIV Golf.

The European Super League could be back on after the EU Court of Justice said that FIFA, UEFA abused their dominant position by stopping clubs from joining the money-grab / breakaway league. Yikes.

 Baseball megastar Shohei Ohtani became MLB’s highest-paid player with a $700 million megacontract with the Dodgers. He also claimed the Associated Press’ Male Athlete of the Year title for the second time in three years. #Ka-ching

Money Talks:

 San Francisco and Mumbai based VideoVerse, an AI-powered video production company, secured $45 million from Bluestone Equity Partners and others. 

 New York based gaming content creation studio and platform Allstar landed $12 million in Series A funding. 

 Los Angeles based Rypplzz, the startup behind a multi-patented geolocation platform, raised $3 million in seed funding from KB Partners.

Milan based NOVO Esports organisation raised €110,000.More Top Deals:  Chess.com Undisclosed, Crionet Acq LIGR,  MPL Acq Good Game Exchange, TeamSnap Acq MOJO Sports, Toca Football Acq Quad Indoor Sport. 

Latest from our Channels

 #190 SportsTech Radar: GSTVCR 23: Global SportsTech VC Report 2023 

.A 60 mins snapshot of the most important findings from SportsTechX’s latest GLOBAL SPORTSTECH VC REPORT 2023. Covering data & insights from another interesting year for SportsTech.

 STX Weekly: Last week’s newsletter, in case you missed it.

 STX Clips: We chat with Philine MöIler, Co- Founder of Medvind, who talks about the ultimate weather protection and safety jacket for urban cyclists.

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