🔊 Legendary Athlete Looks To Raise $100 Million Fund

📰 TOP STORY
Lance Armstrong Looks To Raise $100 Million For Next Ventures’ Fund II

• Lance Armstrong’s Next Ventures Targets $100 Million 2nd Fund. The new fund is San Francisco-based Next Ventures’ first raise in nearly five years. Its predecessor, a 2019 vintage fund that had targeted $75 million, closed on $50 million with an additional $10 million in special purpose vehicles. Next Ventures’ Fund II will invest with a focus on whole-person health, ranging from preventative care to diagnostics and healthcare infrastructure. The health and wellness investor’s existing portfolio includes exercise recovery startup Amp Human, health tracking ring developer Oura, and medical device diagnostics company Vital Bio (more here).

💰 MONEY MOVES 
Five Iron Golf Received $20 Million Investment From Shake Shack Founder

• Five Iron Golf Received A $20 Million Investment From Danny Meyer & Enlightened Hospitality Investments. Danny Meyer, founder and Chairman of Shake Shack as well as the owner/operator of New York City restaurants like Union Square Café, Gramercy Tavern, and The Modern, has invested $20 million into the indoor golf experience company to help fuel growth and expansion (more here).

• Saudi Sportstech Grintafy Announces Strategic Investment From Chiliz. Grintafy will leverage Chiliz's unique technological infrastructure, ecosystem, and expertise to accelerate its web3 transition and international growth (more here).

• Two Circles Acquires Let It Fly Media. Let It Fly specializes in sports video production and storytelling, including branded media and event coverage. They have delivered social and digital activations, as well as producing live and long-form content for partners that include the KC Current NWSL team, Formula One’s Miami Grand Prix, the College Football Playoff, and the Rose Bowl (more here).

 🤝 PARTNERSHIPS
DVSport Replay Solutions Technology Will Be Streamlined By Genius Sports

• DVSport Strikes New Partnership With Genius Sports. DVSport’s officiating replay solutions have been used in over 10,000 collegiate football games and 15,000 collegiate basketball games to support officiating decisions with broadcast-quality video. With this partnership, Genius Sport’s official data feeds will streamline the workflows behind DVSport’s officiating technology, instantly identifying key plays that need to be reviewed and automatically pairing them with simultaneous multi-angle video clips (more here).

• Formula E Announces New Technology Partnership With Google Cloud. The collaboration will involve Formula E using Google Cloud technologies ranging from scalable cloud infrastructure to data and analytics, to generative artificial intelligence tools in the GENBETA Race Car Development Program to accelerate the growth of the world’s first all-electric motorsport (more here).

• Atlanta Hawks Announce Partnership With Google Cloud. The Atlanta Hawks announced a new partnership with Google to strengthen both organizations’ continued commitment to the community and enhance education through technology (more here).

• NWSL & Amazon Collaborate On Multi-Year Sponsorship. As part of the sponsorship, Amazon Prime is now the presenting partner for the NWSL’s Best XI Awards. The awards recognize the best players by position on a monthly cadence throughout the regular season. The sponsorship also names Amazon an official NWSL licensee. NWSL fans can now shop Amazon Fan Shop for hundreds of officially licensed NWSL products (more here).

• Sporting Kansas City Kicks Off Season With Evolv Technology. Evolv Technology is the leading security technology company pioneering AI-based screening to create safer experiences. The MLS team will use Evolv Express for weapons detection at Children’s Mercy Park in Kansas City, Kansas. Sporting KC has Express systems screening all fans entering the arena, which welcomes over 20,000 fans for soccer games (more here).

• URFC & RSL Partner With KAGR To Drive Club Innovation. Utah Royals FC (NWSL) & Real Salt Lake (MLS) and KAGR (Kraft Analytics Group), a leading sports technology and analytics company, announced a multi-year partnership to accelerate the Utah soccer properties’ joint data-first approach to growing soccer fandom in Utah (more here).

🔊 OTHER SPORTS NEWS
Jacksonville Jaguars Ex-Employee Sentenced To 78 Months In Prison For Embezzlement

• Jacksonville Jaguars Ex-Employee Was Given 78 Months In Prison. Amit Patel embezzled and gambled away $22 million through FanDuel and DraftKings while working as an admin for the team's virtual credit card program. He has also been ordered to pay the Jaguars full restitution of the money lost (more here).

• Volley’s AI-Enabled Ball Machine For Racquet Sports Can Simulate Gameplay. A new sports tech startup, Volley, aims to revolutionize the way racquet sports players (platform tennis, padel, and pickleball) train with its AI-enabled sports training machine (more here).

• Top 4 Indian Sports Tech Startups To Lookout For In 2024. In a world where technology continues redefining how we approach sports, innovative startups are emerging to revolutionize the industry (more here).

• Former Apple Exec Will Lead Sports Venture Formed By Disney, Fox, Warner Bros Discovery. Former Apple executive Pete Distad will be the CEO of the sports streaming joint venture formed by Walt Disney, Warner Bros Discovery, and Fox Corp (more here).

• Is PE Ready For College Sports? Having established a toehold in the big leagues, private equity is moving on to college sports. PE firms have the potential to clash with nonprofit colleges and universities. Managers will have to navigate controversial issues regarding student-athletes, including whether they’ll be employees and marketing rights (more here).

• Unlock The Future Of Sports Fan & Brand Engagement. The panel featured WNBA legend and LootMogul investor Lisa Leslie, alongside industry leaders Andrew Yaffe (NBA), Paul Liberman (DraftKings), and Myles Kleeger (Braze), and delved into the transformative role of digital innovations in enhancing fan and brand engagement (more here).

• How These Founders Are Building The Next Great Basketball Media Brand. Sports media has evolved a lot over the past 10 years or so. Forever Network has been at the forefront of this evolution because of its ability to adapt. Now it’s one of the leading sports media brands and publishers globally. With the rise of sports betting and fantasy, Alex Sumsky and Nick Kelland are now focused on taking the brand to another level with their latest product (more here).