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We enable angels to co-invest with leading funds, family offices & corporates, providing access to the very best deals.

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Confessions

A close friend of ours – the one and only Jason Healy – recently flew into London for a catch up. So (with minimal notice) we decided to bring a few friends together for some impromptu drinks.

The coolest thing for me and Scott was seeing our community connecting and swapping notes on startups, investing, and life in general. For us, it was further validation that we’ve built something that’s valuable for others – something bigger than us.

We’ve decided to host more get-togethers going forward. We think regular events will provide a nice structure to the year and bring Skin In The Game to life for our community.

They should also provide a forum for investors to engage with our deal flow, meet founders in a relaxed setting, and go deeper into the sports & performance investment story.

So, watch this space for news on our next shindig in 2023. And if we don’t speak before year end, have the very happiest of holidays.

Standouts

⛵️ British SailGP team valued at $40M – Misland Capital joins British sailing legend Ben Ainslie and Vitol director Chris Bake as a shareholder in the privately-owned team. Ainslie, the most successful sailor in Olympic history, continues as majority owner, making him one of only two athletes in the global franchise sailing series to hold ownership out of the nine teams.

🚲 Wattbike secures £3.25M for global growth – The only exercise bike endorsed by British Cycling, Wattbikes are now used by more than 1,000 professional sports teams and 500 Olympic medal winners. The team has sold over 100,000 bikes, with over 240,000 sessions uploaded per month.

👕 Fanatics valued at $31B as Clearlake leads $700m funding round – Overall, 60% of the participants in the round were new investors. Other new backers included investment and merchant banking firm LionTree, who joined existing investors Silver Lake, Softbank and Todd Boehly’s Eldridge.

⚽️ Lyon set final deadline for John Textor to seal takeover – The Facebank founder has been in talks for several months to buy a significant stake in the club, with a Bloomberg report suggesting Textor would acquire a majority stake of 66% and The Athletic pegging his investment at close to £700 million.

🐻 Bear Grylls, Savage Ventures To Acquire, Expand Outdoors.com – TV star and writer Bear Grylls is partnering with Nashville-based digital-sector investors Savage Ventures to acquire, build out and relaunch the venerable website Outdoors.com, and turn it into an adventure-travel destination site.

Best of the rest

⚽️ Bournemouth acquired by Bill Foley in £120m deal – Black Knight Football Club buys all Premier League club shares from Maxim Demin.

‍🇦🇪 Shikhar Dhawan launches $75m sports tech fund – The multi-stage Da One Global Ventures (DOGV) fund has been incorporated into the Abu Dhabi Global Market, with a focus on sports innovation.

⚽️ WSL re-engaging Rothschild in bid to source external funding – The Women’s Super League (WSL) is pursuing as much as UK£100 million in external funding for English soccer’s top-flight.

🏂 Freeride World Tour acquired by FIS as part of plan to align all snowsport disciplines – The International Ski and Snowboard Federation (FIS) has announced the acquisition of the Freeride World Tour (FWT) global skiing and snowboarding circuit.

👨‍🎓 The Players’ Lounge Gains Seed Investment – The Players’ Lounge, a college sports-focused fan engagement platform, announced a seed investment from Draper Associates, a Silicon Valley venture firm.

💰 Sports Technology Market Expected to Be Worth $41.8 Billion by 2027 – The estimated growth is attributed to a continued push for better in-venue activations for fans, innovations related to player and team performance and the rise of esports technology.

🤖 GameOn raises $35m in Series B funding as Minnesota Vikings owners invest – AI-powered chat platform GameOn has raised $35 million in a Series B funding round co-led by Mirae Asset Venture Investment, Mighty Capital and B3 Capital.

⚽️ City Football Group set for ‘€127.1m’ EC Bahia acquisition after members approve deal – Bahia, who were recently promoted to Brazil’s Serie A top-flight, will become the 13th club to join CFG’s global network.

🎧 Vince Vaughn, Greg Olsen Tackle Expansion for Podcast Network – When Greg Olsen told his friend Vince Vaughn he was shopping around an idea for a podcast, the Hollywood movie star had his own proposal. The actor and two former NFL Pro Bowlers brought on a fourth partner: Powerhouse Capital, a Los Angeles-based venture capital fund previously invested in The Athletic and Wondery.

🏀 Phoenix Suns Move Closer to Finding New Owner – A “handful” of bidding groups have reportedly progressed to the second round of vetting for the team. Suns’ advisers believe it will be a record sale, and the report suggests it will push the Suns’ value to $3 billion.

🎮 Gankster raises $4.25 million for its all-in-one competitive gaming platform – The round was co-led by Bessemer Venture Partners and Hetz Ventures. It also included the participation of Overwolf and Samsung Next who were joined by angel investors Doron Nir, President and Founder of StreamElements; Doron Kagan, Founder of Gameplay Galaxy; and Daniel Burns, Partner at Oakvale Capital.

⛓ OKX Ventures Funds Web3 Gaming in New Partnership with Thirdverse – OKX Ventures, the venture arm of world-leading crypto platform OKX, announced its investment in Thirdverse Group, a virtual reality and web3 gaming company headquartered in Tokyo.

⚽️ PSG Owner Reportedly Not Interested in Liverpool – Through Qatar Sports Investments, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani owns Ligue 1’s Paris Saint-Germain, and the Emir of Qatar is reportedly focused on PSG — two Champions League clubs cannot be under the same entity, per UEFA rules.

🇯🇵 Japan’s health-tech Ubie wants to fuel its US expansion with $19M Series C extension – Ubie, a Tokyo-based startup providing an AI-powered symptom checker app and hospital SaaS products, has closed a $19 million extension to its previous Series C round.

❤️ Heart monitoring startup raises $15 million – A Chicago startup developing a wearable sensor to detect heart disease has raised funding from investors as it prepares to submit the device for regulatory approval.

🎮 Motorsport Games Enters into Equity Purchase Agreement – Motorsport Games has entered into a purchase agreement with an investor for up to $2 million.

💵 Vial raises $67M for clinical trial tech and more digital health fundings – The round was led by General Catalyst with participation from Byers Capital, BoxGroup and other investors.

👩‍⚕️ Patient engagement platform Ostro scoops up $45 million – The raise came from Founders Fund, Byers Capital, Caffeinated Capital, Greycroft, Bling Capital, Trust Ventures and RRE Ventures, and brought the startup's total funding pot to more than $55 million.

⛅️ Cloud Health Systems raises $30 million – The round was led by Thrive Capital with participation from Greenoaks Capital, and it values the startup at $200 million.

🔬 Digital pathology startup PictorLabs raises $15.2 millio – The company is developing a virtual staining platform for histopathology, or the microscopic exam of tissue. This round was led by M Ventures, SCC Soft Computer and Koç Holding.

🇧🇪 Minze Health raises – The Belgian startup focused on remote monitoring for urinary tract conditions raised €3.9 million from White Fund, Capricorn Partners and PMV.

💰 Hopelab invests $1.5M in 5 startups offering mental healthcare – The funding is focused on improving access to care, particularly for young people of colour and LGBTQ+ youth. The startups are Brave Health, Caraway Health, InStride, MindRight Health and Violet.

🤑 Pebble stacks $17M for custom health benefits – XYZ Venture Capital led the round.

🚶‍♂️ WeWalk raises cash to bring computer vision to smart cane for visually impaired people – WeWalk, a UK-based startup developing a “smart cane” for visually impaired people, has raised £2 million in venture funding from several notable institutional and angel investors — including Manchester City and German international footballer İlkay Gündoğan.

🧫 Time BioVentures raises $100M to invest in life sciences and health care startups – Musician and biotech investor D.A. Wallach and drug developer Tim Wright have joined forces to create an early-stage life sciences and health care venture firm, Time BioVentures.

💬 Sonde Health raises $19M Series B to prime its vocal tech – Sonde Health raised $19.25 million in Series B funding to globalize its voice-based disease screening technology with partners in Korea and India.

💰 Manhattan West New $100M Fund Seeks Sports With Dividends – Manhattan West, which manages $634M in assets, announced the launch of its private equity fund last week, aiming to invest up to $100 million over the next five years.

💊 bioniq acquires VAHA to create the ultimate global health optimisation platform – bioniq, the company behind the world’s most personalised nutritional supplements, has acquired VAHA – Europe’s leading interactive home fitness mirror and the first of its kind in the UK.

🧃 Smoodi closes $5M to expand reach for its robotic smart blender – Incubated out of Harvard’s Innovation Lab in 2018, CEO Pascal Kriesche and Morgan Abraham call their company a “healthy smoothie store-in-a-box” that is essentially a robot that mixes fruits, vegetables and add-ins like protein into a smoothie.

🏡 Turtle Health seeds $5M to bring fertility testing home – Turtle Health is attempting to go where no fertility startup has gone before, replicating a full-scale fertility evaluation in the home.

🇫🇮 Finnish healthtech startup nabs €5M – Espoo-based telehealth platform Medixine has raised €5 million in a round that was fully subscribed in one week. The growth funding round was launched through Springvest.

🧫 Vaxxas raises $23M to fund needle-free COVID-19 vaccine trial – Vaxxas has secured funding to support clinical development of its needle-free COVID-19 vaccine, stuffing its coffers with $23 million from investors including OneVentures and UniQuest.

😴 Nox Health Announces Strategic Investment from Vestar Capital – The investment will help Nox accelerate development of its sleep diagnostic technology and services, and adoption of its value-based comprehensive sleep management solutions for employers and health plans.

🎮 Jerry Jones and John Goff Merging Esports Venture Onto Nasdaq – Gamesquare, an esports venture by Dallas billionaires Jerry Jones and John Goff, is moving to the Nasdaq stock market amid a deal to acquire Engine Gaming and Media.

🎠 Nautilus Completes Refinancing of Existing Term Loan – Nautilus is a global digitally connected home fitness solutions provider.

💰 PeaTos Closes Series A3 Funding Round – The Series A funds will enable PeaTos to continue its mission of challenging Frito Lay in a David vs Goliath battle for a piece of the salty snack category.

👩‍💼 Juno Medical Raises $12M Series A Led by NEXT VENTURES and Serena Ventures – Juno’s comprehensive tech-enabled healthcare model is designed to meet the everyday healthcare needs of "the 99%".

🃏 Derek Jeter’s Sports-Card Trading Platform Raises $10M – Arena Club, a card-trading platform co-founded by baseball Hall-of-Famer Derek Jeter, recently raised $10 million in Series A funding as it looks to put the ‘trading’ back into trading cards.

😴 Dawn Health, a Virtual Insomnia Clinic, Raises Capital – The company plans to use capital infusion to scale proven platform to millions of Americans who lack access to insomnia therapy.

Some tweets

samir kaji @Samirkaji – 2021 likely was the largest short-lived aberration in VC history, and everyone - LPs, founders, and fund managers - were complicit and incented for it. Sobriety is definitely back, but it'll take time for everyone to unlearn what preceded 2022.

Cecilia D'Anastasio @cecianasta – New: Venture capital and sponsorship funds are leaking out of esports. Funding sources dwindle amid a broad economic downturn, disappointed VC and crypto meltdown--particularly as many question esports orgs' ability to turn a profit.

sᴛᴀʀᴛᴜᴘ ᴅᴀᴇᴍᴏɴ @startupdaemon – Sometimes things are more enjoyable with fewer words.

P.S.

Gutted to see England go out of the World Cup, but no regrets. The boys done good. And this World Cup is all about Messi.

Yours in sports,

Ed
—
Ed Rhys
Co-Founder / Skin In The Game
skininthegamegroup.com

Join our syndicate

If you find this newsletter useful, consider joining our FCA regulated investment syndicate connecting investors with groundbreaking startups in sports & human performance.

We enable angels to co-invest with leading funds, family offices & corporates, providing access to the very best deals.

Join Our Syndicate

SKIN IN THE GAME GROUP LIMITED is registered in England and Wales under Company Number 14338473 and with the FCA as an Appointed Representative with FRN 984265. SKIN IN THE GAME GROUP LIMITED is an Appointed Representative of Finex LLP which is authorised and regulated in the UK by the Financial Conduct Authority (“FCA”) with firm reference number 507537.

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