Standouts

🤩 Tom Brady and Kim Clijsters latest to buy Major League Pickleball team – The pair are part of a group led by Knighthead Capital Management, which also includes the firm’s co-founder Tom Wagner, as well as film producer Matt Alvarez and Wall Street bond saleswoman Callie Simpkins.

🎮 Vanta Announces $2.5M Seed to Create a Safer, More Development Focused Scholastic Esports Environment – Led by Scout Ventures, the seed round saw participation from J Ventures, Veteran Ventures Capital, and Trajectory Capital, with additional contributions from Blue Ventures, GTM Fund, Paul Lasiuk, the Hart Family, the Rifkin Family, and several angels.

🍄 Clerkenwell Health raises £2.1M to test psychedelic-assisted therapies – Investors participated in the round include Lionheart Ventures, Convergence Partners, and Exceptional Ventures, which was co-founded by Paolo Pio and Matt Cooper, co-founder of Tandem Bank and Chairman of Octopus Capital Group.

❤️ Eli Manning, Theo Epstein, Drive by DraftKings back Spren in closing more than $11 million – Spren, the company behind top-ranked Heart Rate Variability app Elite HRV, has closed $11.3 million in seed funding to bring its camera-enabled, digital biomarker platform out of stealth mode.

👁 Solvemed raises £3.2m for ocular identification of neurological diseases – The product examines people’s eyes for signs of neurodegenerative diseases including Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s and multiple sclerosis.

Best of the rest

⛳️ Puttshack Raises $150M for U.S. Growth – Puttshack, a tech-infused mini-golf venture, has completed a $150 million growth capital round led by BlackRock and Promethean Investments.

😴 Arcascope raises $2.85 million to accelerate its go-to-market and advance the science of chronomedicine – The company, founded by 3 PhD experts in sleep science, is launching its validated circadian management platform, bolstered by clinical data showing marked improvements in sleep and fatigue.

🏏 MS Dhoni's Investments – Former India skipper Mahendra Singh Dhoni recently had launched his training academy in partnership with his franchise Chennai Super Kings. Now Dhoni has picked up equity in the plant protein startup Shaka Harry.

⌚️ Rockley Photonics Raises Additional Financing – Rockley Photonics, a global leader in photonics-based health monitoring and communications solutions, has obtained $10.0 million of financing from the holders of its Convertible Senior Secured Notes due 2026.

🗺 onX Secures $87.4M in Series B Funding – onX, a pioneer in outdoor digital navigation, announced a $87.4M Series B investment. The funding round was led by Summit Partners, which led the company's Series A financing in 2018, and includes participation from Steve Burke's Madison Valley Partners and other existing investors.

⛓ NFT-Based Athlete Investment Platform FANtium Raises $2 Million – FANtium, a platform that enables fans to invest in athletes through NFTs, has received $2 million in private pre-seed funding from a group that includes U.S. Open tennis champion Dominic Thiem and OneFootball founder Lucas von Cranach.

🧠 ADHD coaching platform Shimmer launches with $1.3M – Shimmer’s program, developed by leading ADHD experts, including those from NYU and UCSF, makes coaching more affordable by taking sessions that once took hour and turning them into 15 minute mini or “bite-sized” live sessions, which are then paired with an accountability system. Memberships start at $99 per month, and includes weekly 15-minute video sessions.

🇳🇱 Amsterdam-based mental health startup OpenUp bags €15M to expand services in Europe – The investment came from Dutch investors Rubio Impact Ventures and Achmea Innovation Fund. Informal investors, such as Adriaan Nühn, David Vismans and the founders of Hyves, also participated in this round.

📺 Queen City Angels Closes Investment in Pittsburgh-based C360 – Queen City Angels (QCA) is pleased to announce the closing of an investment in C360, a Pittsburgh-based computer vision SaaS company that provides solutions to leading broadcasters and sports leagues around the world.

🦠 Pleno Raises $40M To Seek Out New Disease Targets – Health care-focused Deerfield Management led the round with participation from Foresite Capital. Altogether, Pleno has raised $55 million in funding, per Crunchbase data.

🇺🇸 Miami-based Index Health secures $6M seed round – The startup uses telemedicine to treat illnesses by providing an innovative and personalized approach, raised $6 million in a seed round led by LAUNCHub Ventures and Inovo Venture Partners.

🇶🇦 SC Braga sell 22% stake to Qatar Sports Investments – Qatar Sports Investments (QSI) has signed a share purchase agreement for a 21.67 per cent stake in Portuguese top-flight soccer club SC Braga.

🧴 Northwind raises to offer Teledermatology for Psoriasis and Eczema – Northwind combines technology at scale with highly efficient therapeutic treatments to give 31 million Americans better specialized skincare faster, at a fraction of the cost they’re used to.

‍💪 One-year-old fitness startup raises $3.4 million in seed funding – The seed funding saw participation from Accel India, Beenext, Sequoia Capital India & Waveform Ventures.

🧠 Brave Health gets $40M for Medicaid's mental health gap – Brave Health, a virtual care startup dedicated to mental health care for Medicaid members, raised $40 million in Series C funding led by Town Hall Ventures.

👵 Digital care platform Elder secures £20m funding boost – A UK healthcare start-up which connects Britain's growing population of pensioners to carers has raised approximately £20m from IPF Partners, a Luxembourg-based investor.

🇮🇳 Good Health Company raises $10 million in Series A funding – Hyderabad-based direct-to-consumer startup Good Health Company has secured $10 million in a Series A funding round, led by New York-based venture capital firm Left Lane Capital.

🦄 How Blaseball’s fantasy sports fever dream is embracing the future – Blaseball arrived at a moment of global isolation and fear. So, naturally, swaths of extremely online gamers with lots of anxiety and too much time on their hands welcomed the distraction and developed an expansive, collaborative fan community.

Some tweets

Ryan Denehy @DenehyXXL – Talking to highly competitive friends of mine (cyclists, runners, racing drivers) one fascinating pattern emerged. Winning happens when high ambition is paired with low expectations. Everyone wants to win, but you win by focusing on running the play *not* the outcome 🏁🏁

Luke Metro @luke_metro – I have a friend raising a seed round for a hardware company and my favorite activity is seeing the ridiculous business advice that he gets from VC associates after pitching

John Arnold @JohnArnoldFndtn – Owning a PE or VC fund is the ultimate hedge. Market goes up, sell assets and collect 20% of profits. Market goes down, hold assets and collect 2% management fee for 10 years.

‍P.S.

Great to see the Rugby League World Cup kick off at the weekend. Union is my thing but as a younger man, I once played in a League match ... I seem to recall my legs burning from all that running backwards and kick-chasing and general brutality. Never again!

Yours in sports,

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

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