🔊 These Dudes Raised $100 Million

📰 TOP STORY
Top Sports YouTube Creators Raise $100 Million

• Dude Perfect Raise $100 Million. YouTube sports and comedy group Dude Perfect recently raised over $100 million from private investment firm Highmount Capital to expand beyond the video platform that made it famous. Founded by five Texas A&M students in April 2009, the YouTube channel started by posting videos of basketball trick shots. Now, as they celebrate their 15th anniversary, the group has more than 60 million subscribers on YouTube, plus games, toys, and TV shows to its name. They expect revenue to top $50 million this year — double what it made just two years ago (more here).

💰 MONEY MOVES 
The Players Fund Invests In Ticketing Company 

• Athlete-Led Venture Capital Firm The Players Fund Invest In Seat Unique. Seat Unique, an innovative premium ticketing and hospitality platform has secured investment from The Players Fund, the UK’s first athlete-led venture capital firm. Founded by a group of top athletes and sportspeople including Ben Stokes, Dame Jessica Ennis-Hill, and Chris Smalling, The Players Fund is dedicated to connecting the world of sports with startups to bridge the gap between athletes’ off-field lives and entrepreneurial endeavors (more here).

• Quintar Raises $8.2 Million Round. The Santa Clara, California-based AR sports company said that Centre Court Capital has made a significant investment as part of an $8.2 million Series A round. The round was led by SeventySix Capital and Cowles Company (more here).

• Simon Sports Acquires Assets From The Players Impact. Simon Sports, a Michigan-based sports investment firm, has reached an agreement to buy assets from The Players Impact (TPI). TPI, co-founded by Tracy Deforge, works with athletes to help them build and support their post-career earnings. Through the asset acquisition, TPI and Simon Sports will establish a joint venture designed to accelerate the growth of TPI’s mission and model globally (more here).

 🤝 PARTNERSHIPS
Legendary Tennis Star Partners With SportsTech Padel Company

• Rafael Nadal Partners With Playtomic. The 22-time Grand Slam champion is now an investor, ambassador, and shareholder in Playtomic, a leading app for booking padel and tennis courts. Playtomic touts itself as “The largest racket player community worldwide.” Playtomic provides immediate booking and management of clubs dedicated to tennis and padel, allowing players to access and book courts quickly and efficiently. Players can find padel courts in more than 50 countries with a wide community of players at different levels (more here).

• Volt Athletics Acquires Zama Health, Adding Mental Wellness Layer. Volt Athletics, an AI-powered performance training platform, has made a significant step into the world of holistic wellness, adding a mental health component following its acquisition of Zama Health. The deal sees Zama Health founder and CEO Brendan Sullivan join the Seattle-based fitness tech company as general manager of athlete wellbeing (more here).

• Nascar & WSC Sports Expand Partnership To Enhance The Nascar Mobile App. WSC Sports, a NASCAR partner for several years, will provide technology to create in-app stories for fans via the firm's AI software. The new in-app experience will significantly enhance Nascar’s mobile app, which has seen exponential growth in users (more here).

• Satisfi Labs & Broadw.ai Merge To Expand Conversational AI Across Sports. The move strengthens Satisfi Labs' industry presence and commitment to the Live Event space. Satisfi Labs is also pleased to announce the appointment of Micah Hollingworth as its Head of Entertainment. Micah previously served as Broadw.ai's Founder and CEO (more here).

• Perfect Game & Magnus Sports Team Up. This collaboration will provide in-game ball flight metrics, famously utilized by MLB’s Statcast, to the mass market of baseball for the first time. Through this partnership, 13U-18U athletes playing on select fields equipped with Yakkertech 4-camera optical tracking systems will have immediate access to purchase comprehensive performance reports. These reports offer insights into crucial metrics such as exit velocity, batted ball distance, pitch locations, break and movement, and more, empowering young players to enhance their skills and understand their results (more here).

• OKX & Chiliz Teams Up To Empower Sports & Entertainment Blockchain. In this partnership, OKX will serve as a new validator for the Chiliz Chain, a premier Layer-1 EVM-compatible blockchain dedicated to sports and entertainment. By joining forces, OKX enhances the Chiliz Chain’s governance, security, and scalability, critical for executing smart contracts seamlessly and ensuring robust transaction verification (more here).

🔊 OTHER SPORTS NEWS
Serena Williams’ Impressive Investment Portfolio

• Serena Williams’ VC Fund Has Invested In 14 Companies That Have Gone On To Reach Unicorn Status, A Value Of $1B Or More. Following her retirement in September 2022, Williams focused more of her attention on the investment arena. With over a decade of investment experience, she took a pivotal step in 2014 by establishing Serena Ventures, a venture capital fund specifically designed to champion women and underrepresented founders. Here’s a rundown of her portfolio (more here).

• WiST Announces 2024 Cohort. Women in Sports Tech, a non-profit organization on a mission to drive transformative growth opportunities for women and employers in the sports tech industry, recently announced its 2024 Fellowship Cohort (more here).

• NCAA Women Beat Men In Finals’ Ratings for First Time But Got 99% Less TV Money. The women’s basketball championship game drew 18.9 million viewers vs. 14.8 million for the men’s final, fueled by Caitlin Clark’s emergence as a superstar but do the dollars match up? (more here).

• Timberwolves Ownership Spat Reflects NBA’s New Financial Dilemmas. Minnesota Timberwolves governor Glen Taylor announced in March that his deal with Marc Lore and Alex Rodriguez for majority control of the Timberwolves and WNBA's Minnesota Lynx was off. The two sides have been embroiled in a messy spat ever since (more here).

• Premier League Will Use Semi-Automated Offside Technology Next Season. The Premier League will use AI-based player tracking technology to make offside calls from next season in a move that should reduce the time it takes officials to reach their decisions (more here).

• Sacramento Kings Announce 2024 Capitalize Technology Winner. Strived.io will receive $10,000 for further development of its startup and two years of access to Dialpad Communications Services, the city of Sacramento’s Office of Innovation and Economic Development, and Consolidated Communications platform. Strived.io uses the power of AI analysis, to augment the educator decision-making process. The platform empowers educators and administrators to better manage students’ academic data through technology (more here).