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Recap of the SportsTech dealflow seen in February with a link to our recent interview with the Teamworks team. Plus we’re leading up to the upcoming SportsInnovation event in Düsseldorf.
Sports Tech Monthly Round-Up
Continuing our monthly tracker of SportsTech investment, it’s time to look at how things went in February 2024.
The data is a snapshot from our SportsTechDB. with only highlights included in this newsletter edition. Head to our DB for more in-depth data.
February 2024
| $70 million Funding 💰 | $825 million M&A 🤝 | 38 Deals Cracked 📈 |
A 70% decline in month-on-month investment activity while M&A activity doubled. This is going back to the trend we saw for most of 2023, what we called the ‘year of consolidation’.
- Geography: North America remains the most active region, 78% of the funding amount and all of the M&A amount coming from there.
- Sectors: Funding sees a pretty even split this month again between solutions ‘For Fans’ and solutions ‘For Athletes’ – 44%-45%.
- Top Deals: $21 million in funding for Crypto-enabled gambling platform Monkey Tilt and DraftKings acquiring the US lottery app Jackpocket for a whooping $750 million.
We’re hoping for investment activity to kick on from what we saw in January but instead it’s a step back before hopefully a few steps forward later in the year.
Feature Story
Teamworks: Innovation Challenges Faced by Sports Teams
We mentioned this in a recent newsletter, we’re currently working with Teamworks on a report on ‘Innovation Challenges faced by Sports Organizations’. The goal is to interview Innovation managers at various sports organisations and present their perspectives.
In the lead up to the report, we recorded an interview with Fee Bayer (Business Development Exec) and Hayden Gutry (Head of Europe, the Middle East and Africa) from Teamworks.
A number of topics were covered: We talked about how Teamworks operates, their recent launch in Germany, challenges they’ve faced in different markets around the world, their presence at the Sports Innovation event on 21st and 22nd March in Düsseldorf and what we can expect from them in the next 12-18 months. It wasn’t all serious, we promise.
The full interview will be released on our podcast next week. For now, here’s an excerpt covering some of the main points.
Sports Innovation 2024
The industry event with an international orientation will take place on 20 and 21 March 2024, at the MERKUR SPIEL-ARENA in Düsseldorf once again. The ‘Innovation Games’, in which the latest technologies and visions for the future are demonstrated live, will once again be at the heart of the event and its stand-out feature
Top News from the World of Sports Tech
🎟️ US sportsbooks set record revenue of $65.5 billion in 2023, of which $10.9 billion came from sports betting which is a 44.5% revenue hike year on year. The overall US sports betting in 2023 came to $119.8 billion, a 27.8% increase from the previous year.
💸 NBA Champion Kendrick Perkins and Edly jointly announced the launch of a new investment platform, NILLY, for student athletes to capitalize on their name and image earnings.
🏀 Euroleague basketball and Sportpass (fan engagement and gaming platform), reached an agreement to reinforce Euroleague Basketball’s gamification strategy, bringing a Euroleague themed web-3 gaming platform.
🎦 Disney announced the 10th class of its annual accelerator program, in which they identify startups working with emerging technologies and give them funding and mentorship to boost their growth. StatusPro was one of the five, which just reinforces the potential of AR/VR in sports.
🤝 While we’re on that topic, ESPN teamed up with Meta as the fourth member of the ESPN Edge Innovation Center. The collaboration aims to bring an ESPN-branded virtual reality (VR) sports broadcasting experiences to Meta Quest.
💻 Infinite Athlete and Gemini Sports Analytics (who were on our pod) partnered to create an AI-powered data platform to help sports teams and organisations make more in-depth and accurate decisions on and off the field as technology continues to spread its influence across sports.
🎮 Overtime partnered with Fanatics Live commerce platform, to debut an online storefront where users can view livestreams, buy trading cards and enter giveaways.
Money Talks
💰 Crypto-enabled gambling platform Monkey Tilt raised $21 million funding round from Polychain Capital and others for a crypto fantasy sports platform.
💰 Indian health and fitness platform Cultfit raised $10 million in a round led by Valecha Investments.
💰 US based team sports management platform, CrewLAB raised $1.6 million to democratize data & technology for endurance sports teams.
💰 Austin based Sweatpals raised $700 k in a new crowdfunding campaign, to help sports and fitness enthusiasts join communities to play and exercise together.
💰 Lugano-based startup Crion, the first integrated mountain sports platform, raised $187.5k in a pre seed round.
💰 Los Angeles based sports media production and distribution company, Blue Wire, received an undisclosed growth funding package from Decathlon Capital Partners.
💰 Leader in premium experiences, hospitality, and travel, On Location, made an undisclosed investment in Wiz-Team, an event and data management technology solution. (On Location had already partnered with Wiz-Team to enhance guest management services across Olympic and Paralympic Games, Super Bowl, and the Aer Lingus Classic.)
💰 UK based Padel Operator, Soul Padel, secured an undisclosed amount in a seed round.
🤝 FitLab Inc., acquired iconic equipment manufacturer Assault Fitness and the performance equipment and apparel brand RPM Training both for an undisclosed amount
🤝 Flutter Entertainment-owned FanDuel acquired online gambling player engagement specialist BeyondPlay for an undisclosed amount
Latest from our channels
🎙️Throwback #188 Cartan Capital: Fueling Sports Tech and Health Tech
Cartan Capital is a forward-thinking venture capital firm focused on the sports and health technology markets. With a deep understanding of the unique challenges and opportunities in sports and health technology, they provide financial support, strategic guidance and industry expertise to help their portfolio companies thrive. Watch the full video here.
💸 Sports Tech AllStars Recap: VC’s in SportsTech
⚡ STX Weekly: Last week’s newsletter, in case you missed it.