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

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Confessions

I was recently invited to present on innovation in sport to a group of execs at a top Premier League football club.

They were fans of our newsletter and interested in early-stage investing, specifically strategic investments that combine financial returns with commercial impact.

I told them what I tell everyone – most people believe that the future of sports will be driven by top down forces (what established players are doing), but we believe change will be driven from the bottom up. The future will be shaped by groundbreaking startups and the investors who back them.

The guys on the call agreed, and we’re now exploring how we can work together to drive strategic investment in innovative startups. They’ve also very kindly invited us to watch a game with them… who said this sports investing gig doesn’t have its perks?!

In recent months, Scott and I have been spending more and more time working with family offices, corporate venture, and rights holders, helping them to source and due diligence startup investments in sports & health.

These guys seem to be getting value from leveraging the expertise and influence of investors in our syndicate, composed of super-angels, pro athletes, exited founders, and industry leaders.

“Investment opportunities curated by industry leaders, from seed via growth stage, through to IPO” is a neat pitch that seems to be landing well with institutional investors.

And on the other side of the equation, working with the big boys and girls enables us to leverage their financial firepower and due diligence capabilities, giving our syndicate members access to institutional-grade deals.

By bringing together angels and funds, everyone wins. We can source groundbreaking deals and optimise investments across their full life cycle.

Standouts

‍🏈 American Flag Football League Sells Boston, Vegas Franchises for $3M – There are ongoing discussions about selling a third franchise in Pittsburgh, while football hotbeds of Florida and Texas are also being targeted for teams.

‍🏋️‍♀️ Infront sports has become the majority owner of HYROX -  Expanding on its initial investment in the mass participation and professional race company, Infront’s investment takes its stake to just over half.

🚑 RapidSOS, a big data platform for emergency first responders, raises $75M – The startup has raised $75 million from a group of investors led by security and safety specialist VC NightDragon, with participation from BAM Elevate, Insight Partners, Honeywell, Microsoft’s Venture Fund M12, Axon, Citi via the Citi Impact Fund, Highland Capital Partners, Playground Global, Forte Ventures, C5 Capital and Avanta Venture.

🍄 Psychedelic biotech startup Psylo raises $5 million Seed round – Psylo, a preclinical biotech firm, has raised $5 million in Seed funding as it looks to treat mental illness with naturally occurring psychedelic drugs.

💰 Private equity firm Brand Velocity Group launches a new sports vertical with a personal touch and a star-studded roster – BVGS will pursue opportunities throughout the sports and entertainment landscape – it recently acquired youth jersey manufacturer Score Sports.

‍Best of the rest

⚽ Lionel Messi confirms Play Time Sports-Tech LLC as main vehicle for investing in sports, media, and tech. Play Time will be run by Razmig Hovaghimian, partner at venture capital firm Graph Ventures. Hovaghimian is also a co-founder of football venture Matchday.com, which counts Play Time as its first investor and plans to launch before the 2022 Fifa World Cup begins in November.

🎮 ESPN sells X Games controlling stake to MSP Sports Capital – The first X Games event under the new leadership will be X Games Aspen held next January, which will be broadcast on both ESPN and ABC.

🦾 Vara Raises $4.4 Million In Funding To Bring Its Groundbreaking AI Breast Cancer Screening Platform To Millions More Women – The company has closed a $4.4 million Series A extension, led by VI Partners and included impact investor, EQT Foundation, as well as the family office behind one of Germany's largest radiology provider groups, Med360, which particularly invested after seeing the impact Vara had on its own workflows.

🏎 Porsche Reportedly Close to Buying Half of Formula 1 Team – If the deal is completed, Porsche will be one of two Volkswagen brands entering the grid in 2026: Audi has reportedly agreed to a deal with Sauber, which races under the Alfa Romeo name.

👨‍🦲Olistic, a Spanish neutraceutical company treating hair loss, pulled in $5.87M in a funding round – Iris Ventures has invested 6 million euros in Olistic, a science-backed nutraceutical brand that treats hair loss and the lifestyle factors that contribute to it.

👩‍💼 Flush with Series A funding, Daye unwraps the big gynae health mission – Founder Valentina Milanova tells TechCrunch how her startup is plugging the women's health innovation gap.

🚌 Maro’s new app looks to help schools screen kids for depression and anxiety – Maro is in the midst of raising a $1.5 million pre-seed round and plans to use the investment to expand its current 11-person team and build out its product further.

🕶 VR gaming startup ForeVR Games raises $10M to grow its library of Wii Sports-like titles – ForeVR closed a $10 million Series A funding round, which is being put toward building its gaming portfolio and cementing itself as the “Wii Sports of VR.” Lobby Capital led the Series A funding round with participation from Bessemer Venture Partners and Galaxy Interactive.

🇺🇸 Santa Barbara startup Expond raises $1.25M in seed round – Expond is an online booking platform connecting individuals and companies to health and fitness professionals offering customized wellness services.

👁 Lumata Health Raises $4 Million in Series A Funding to Scale its Human-Led, Intelligent Eye Care Management Platform – Lumata Health, a technology-driven healthcare startup on a mission to prevent blindness and address ophthalmology staffing challenges through its human-led, intelligent eye care management platform, announces $4MM in new venture funding to scale.

🇮🇳 How an Indian startup is using smartphone’s front camera to make fitness fun – Anurag Mundhada and Jayesh Hannurkar, are bringing their expertise in sensors and computer vision to create an interactive home workout platform.

⛓ Gritti raises – Web3 fitness app Gritti raised $1.7 million in a seed round led by Lingfeng Innovation Fund. Payments infrastructure firm Suberra also announced earlier this month that it banked $2.7 million over two rounds.

🇺🇸 Connected Home Fitness Company freebeat Seeks for Growth and Expansion – BlueRun Ventures, a venture capital company based in California, has backed Freebeat after its promising first year. Freebeat has now cumulatively raised over $30 million in strategic funding from GSR Ventures, SIG China Fund, an affiliate of SIG Asia Investment, LLLP, BlueRun Ventures, as well as a few others.

🕶 VR sim startup raises £2.1m to tackle healthcare training gap – Oxford Medical Simulation, a provider of virtual reality healthcare training, has raised a further £2.1 million. The round included ACF Investors and angel investor Dr Nicolaus Henke, former chairman of Quantum Black and former head of McKinsey’s global healthcare practice.

💻 Elion Raises $3.3M in Seed Funding for Digital Health Technology Marketplace – Elion, the independent digital health technology marketplace company, raised $3.3 million in seed funding from leading digital health investors NEA, Max Ventures, 8VC, AlleyCorp, Charge Ventures and Floating Point, with additional participation from a broad set of healthcare founders and angels.

🧠Mental healthcare platform Mindful Care raised $7M in a Series B round – The round was composed of the entire Series A syndicate, led by Sopris Capital, with participation by the University of Chicago, the Caruso Foundation, Venkon Group, and others.

🎧 Boat closes $60-million funding from Warburg and Malabar Investments – Direct-to-consumer (D2C) audio products and wearables brand Boat has closed a $60-million, or about Rs 500-crore, financing through convertible preferred stocks notes from existing investor Warburg Pincus and new investor Malabar Investments, and has formally withdrawn its listing plans.

🤖 Navina secures $22M to process and summarize medical data for clinicians – Navina, a company developing AI-powered assistant software for physicians, raised $22 million in Series B funding led by ALIVE with participation from Grove Ventures, Vertex Ventures Israel and Schusterman Family Investments.

🇺🇸 HealthJoy raises $60M to make benefits easier to navigate – The Chicago-based company has raised $60 million in Series D funding, led by Valspring Capital with participation from Endeavour Vision and CIBC Innovation Banking. Returning investors US Venture Partners, GoHealth founders Brandon Cruz and Clint Jones, Health Velocity Capital, Nueterra Capital and Epic also joined the round.

💼 Pasito, a YC grad that helps companies manage benefits, raises $3.25M from Google and others – Portland, Ore.-based startup Pasito raised a $3.25 million seed round to fuel growth of its software that helps companies manage employee healthcare and wealth benefits.

🇮🇳 Soothe Healthcare raises ₹ 175 crore in funding – Soothe Healthcare, India’s fastest growing personal hygiene company and makers of Paree Sanitary Pads, announced a fresh round of funding of ₹ 120 crores from its existing investors and another ₹ 55 crores from the U.S. International Development Finance Corporation (DFC). The existing partners include A91, Symphony, Sixth Sense, and GII.

💪Limber Health Closes Series A Funding Round Led by Blue Venture Fund – Limber Health, a leader in merging in-clinic and digital musculoskeletal care, has closed an oversubscribed $11 million Series A.

‍Some tweets

Jason ✨Be Kind✨ Lemkin @jasonlk – Raising VC money, it’s better to be growing 150% at $2m ARR than 50% at $20m ARR Even though you’ve accomplished 1/10th as much Hard to grok at first but it’s just a fact

Sar Haribhakti @sarthakgh – Sassy takes from @KateClarkTweets on junior VCs theinformation.com/articles/the-v…

Morgan Housel @morganhousel – I wonder how much this tech crash makes companies rethink stock-based comp for most workers (vs. senior execs). It's one thing for the CEO to eat their cooking; another for a mid-level engineer to see half their pay evaporate.

‍P.S.

Over the weekend I had the pleasure of watching Leeds beat Liverpool in a Premier League match played at 7:45pm on a Saturday night. Great for me sitting on the sofa with a glass of wine, not so great for thousands of fans needing to get home at 10pm with limited public transport. Who comes up with this stuff?!

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 & health.

We enable angels to co-invest with leading funds, family offices, and corporate venture, 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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