🔊 Personalized Recovery Startup Raises $80M+

📰 TOP STORY
Aescape Secures $83M in Strategic Funding

• Robots are taking over recovery. Well, sort of… This week, it was announced that Aescape, the lifestyle robotics company pioneering AI massage for personalized recovery, raised a $83M strategic funding round led by Valor Equity Partners. Existing investors, including Alumni Ventures, and NBA Champion and All-Star Kevin Love also participated in the round. With this latest investment, Aescape’s total funding stands at $128M. The company plans to use the funds to scale operations, expand into new markets, and grow its partnerships with global brands. Aescape also announced it will extend the availability of its systems from 10 to 60 Equinox locations. Founder Eric Litman stated the company is seeing “substantial” demand in the luxury market, among others, and has tables installed with multiple professional sports teams (more here).

How does it work?

The entire experience is on demand. You first can use the Aescape app to browse different massage options and book a session based on availability in your area. Once you arrive, you change into Aerware, the company's custom apparel built specially for the massage, to wear during the session. The clothing helps the robot’s depth sensors see your body and guarantees friction when the touch sensors, called “Aerpoints,” come in contact with it. The touchscreen display then prompts you to pick a massage type. Currently, they offer 20 massage programs with various focuses. The next step is a 3D computational model body scan to capture millions of data points of your body to identify key areas for the targeted massage. Once the body scan is successful, the robot arms get to work. On the display, you can see a timeline of the entire massage, which parts are being targeted, how long each part takes, and what's coming next. You can also adjust the headrest, armrest, and leg bolster, play music, increase/decrease pressure, save preferences, and stop the massage at any time.

Why is this important?

The overall performance space is transforming, with AI and data leading the way. As a result, high-level athletes, who typically have access to the best-in-class technology and tools, will play longer, perform better, and recover faster. We saw it with Tom Brady, who played in the NFL until he was 45, and we’re seeing it with LeBron James, who’s been in the NBA for 22 seasons. In my opinion, these athletes won’t be exceptions in the future. But now, companies such as Aescape are making this technology available to the masses. What impact will technology such as this have on overall human performance? A drastic one. The average health-conscious individual admires world-class athletes, and with this revolutionary massage machine, they can now recover like one.

💰 MONEY MOVES 
Private Equity Firm Bids Big For Global Tennis Tournaments

• CVC Bids $1B For IMG’s Madrid Open & Miami Open. Private equity firm CVC Capital Partners is preparing a $1B to acquire the Madrid Open and Miami Open, according to Sky News. The outlet reports that CVC is among the remaining bidders for the two tournaments, with the sale process being handled by The Raine Group. The events are owned by agency giant Endeavor and are classified at the Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP) Tour Masters 1000 and Women’s Tennis Association (WTA) 1000 elite level (more here).

• Pickleball Inc Raises $5.3M. Pickleball Inc., the parent company of numerous leading pickleball entities, announced a $5.3M funding round led by Hyperspace Ventures. Pickleball Inc.'s portfolio of companies includes the United Pickleball Association, PPA Tour, Major League Pickleball, Pickleball Central, PickleballTV, Pickleball.com, DUPR, and more. Good Alpha Industries, Sinclair Broadcast Group, Tom Dundon, and Dundon Capital Partners also joined the investment (more here).

• nVenue Secures Investment. nVenue, a leading provider of live and micro markets for sports betting, announced new strategic investments from FDJ Ventures, The Collectiv, and DigitalWin, together with a follow-on investment from lead investor KB Partners. This latest investment positions nVenue to strengthen its global offerings and provide scalable solutions for betting operators worldwide. The terms of the oversubscribed round were not disclosed (more here).

 🤝 PARTNERSHIPS
Fanatics’ New Groundbreaking Ticketing Partnership

• Fanatics & Ticketmaster Form Partnership. Global sports merchandising and betting company Fanatics has officially entered the ticketing market. The company is teaming up with Ticketmaster to launch the Fanatics Ticket Marketplace. This partnership is part of a broader collaboration between Fanatics and Live Nation’s Ticketmaster, enabling Ticketmaster tickets to be listed on Fanatics while Fanatics merchandise becomes available on Ticketmaster (more here).

• TKO & Saudi Form Partnership. TKO Group Holdings, the parent company of WWE and UFC, and Saudi Arabia's Sela announced a multi-year partnership to establish a new boxing promotion. TKO will "provide day-to-day operational expertise, management, and oversight of the promotion," with UFC CEO Dana White and WWE president Nick Khan leading the charge (more here).

• Fastbreak.AI & Adidas Form Partnership. Adidas and Fastbreak.AI announced a partnership to provide 6,000+ underserved athletes with access to elite camps and tournaments. This partnership aims to break down the financial barriers that prevent many young athletes from competing at the highest levels (more here).

🔊 ATHLETES & OTHER NEWS
Serena Adds Another Pro Team To Her Portfolio

• Serena Williams Joins Toronto Tempo Ownership Group. Tennis great Serena Williams was announced as a minority owner of the new WNBA team Toronto Tempo, set to take the floor next summer. She joins an ownership group led by Larry Tanenbaum, chairman of both Kilmer Sports Ventures and Maple Leaf Sports & Entertainment, which has a portfolio that includes the NHL's Maple Leafs and the NBA's Raptors. Williams will "contribute to bringing the Tempo to life visually" by playing "an active role in future jersey designs and will help forge unique merchandise collaborations with the team (more here).

• Sabrina Ionescu Invests In Bay FC. WNBA star Sabrina Ionescu has become a minority investor in the NWSL team Bay FC. Ionescu, who has a range of high-profile endorsement deals with Nike, Body Armour, and AT&T, will also serve as a commercial advisor to the club and its players. As the first women's basketball player to have a unisex signature collection with Nike, Ionescu would like to parlay that business relationship into cleats for Bay FC and other NWSL clubs, as she did with a handful of NFL and MLB players (more here).

• Kyle Kuzma Has Been An NBA Champion & An Underdog, Now He's The One Telling His Story. Kyle Kuzma has navigated the highs and lows of the NBA, from winning a championship with the Lakers to facing struggles with the Wizards, now with the Bucks, he's embracing his journey and controlling his own narrative. Entrepreneur.com features some of his moves off the basketball court (more here).

• Deloitte’s 2025 Sports Investment Outlook. Deloitte released the third edition of its Sports Investment Outlook, which examines the key trends that shaped 2024, informed by Deloitte's analysis of investment activity into sports rightsholders globally and the forces poised to drive deal activity in 2025 and beyond (more here).

• Meet The Billionaire Owners Of Every NFL Team. The NFL is one of the biggest businesses in the world, accounting for 29 of Forbes's top 50 sporting franchises of 2024. And while star players and coaches are certainly deserving of credit for that fact, it's often the owners who are responsible for the key decisions made by their franchise. Here's everything you need to know about the NFL's team owners, from how they acquired their teams to their NFLPA grades to how the teams performed during their tenure (more here).

• Women’s Sports Growth Is A Win For Investors, Brands, & The Planet. The meteoric growth of women’s sports offers brands and investors the opportunity to reach new audiences, access new revenue streams, and secure high returns. It benefits society and the planet, too. Women’s sports fans have a values-first mindset and prioritize brands that demonstrate integrity and social responsibility (more here).

• Tennis Participation In The US Hits New High, Prompting $10M Investment. The USTA announced that tennis participation bounced even higher for the fifth consecutive year. Last year saw a 1.9M, or over 8%, increase from the estimated 23.8M Americans who played tennis at some point in 2023 to bring the number of people who raised a racket in 2024 up to a high of 25.7M prompting a $10M investment into further growing more infrastructure (more here).