🔊 Robinhood x Rich Paul

📰 TOP STORY
Fintech Company Robinhood Is Partnering With Rich Paul & KLUTCH Sports

• Robinhood Announces Partnership With Rich Paul In Which He Becomes An Advisor. Robinhood and KLUTCH Sports Group announced a new strategic partnership that will see KLUTCH Sports Group and its Property Sales division serve as Robinhood’s agency of record for partnerships in the sports and entertainment sectors. In addition to this, Rich Paul, founder and CEO of KLUTCH Sports Group, will be a strategic brand advisor at Robinhood. Paul will advise and support Robinhood as the company expands its marketing efforts across new verticals in sports, entertainment, and media. He will also work closely with CEO and co-founder Vlad Tenev to identify new partnership opportunities at the intersection of sports and entrepreneurship (more here).

💰 MONEY MOVES 
Jake Paul’s Sports Betting Startup Raises A New Round

• Jake Paul’s Betr Sportsbook Startup Raises Funds At $375 Million Valuation. The $15 million financing round set announced on Wednesday was led by venture capital firms Harmony Partners and 10X Capital. Existing investors include Fuel Venture Capital Partners, Aliya Capital Partners, and Eberg Capital. The new round brings Betr’s total funding to $100 million (more here).

• Springbok Analytics Receives $1.7 Million Phase II SBIR Grant. Springbok, a life sciences muscle analytics company, announced that it received a $1.7 million Phase II Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to develop a commercially viable machine learning algorithm to automatically detect shoulder muscle pathology (more here).

• Diamond Kinetics Acquires SidelineHD. Diamond Kinetics, the sports technology company transforming youth baseball and softball development, announced the acquisition of sidelineHD, an innovative youth sports media platform specializing in live streaming and video highlights (more here).

• The BXNG Club Initiates $2 Million Funding Round To Fuel Expansion. The BXNG Club, a premier fitness center offering classes, training & workout programs, announced a new $2 million funding round to support its strategic expansion plans (more here).

• VRTL Closes $1 Million Seed Round. VRTL, a platform that enables live entertainment brands to create virtual venues for engaging events, recently announced the closing of its $1 million seed round. The funding round included participation from APEX Capital and HearstLab (more here).

 🤝 PARTNERSHIPS
WNBA & Genius Sports Announced Cutting-Edge Partnership

• WNBA & Genius Sports Bring Tracking Data To Every WNBA Arena. The WNBA announced a multi-year partnership and venture through which Second Spectrum, a Genius Sports technology solution, will become the optical tracking provider to the league (more here).

• FanDuel Becomes The Official Betting Partner Of The Carolina Panthers. The partnership comes ahead of the March 11 launch of mobile sports betting in North Carolina and is part of a series of initiatives to engage sports fans throughout the state (more here).

• Sportian by Globant & StadioPlus Agree To A Global Strategic Partnership. Sportian, the Sports & Entertainment Company from Globant, has joined forces with gaming and web3 specialists, StadioPlus, to enrich both companies’ respective offerings and help sports organizations combine digital product creation, growth strategies, meta-experiences, and the creation of branded virtual worlds (more here).

• Las Vegas Aces & Ally Bank Announce Multimillion-Dollar Partnership. Last year, Ally Bank committed to equally splitting its investments in men's and women's sports by 2027. Since then, the company has inked deals with the National Women's Soccer League (NWSL) and the United States Golf Association (USGA). The back-to-back WNBA champions will be the first women's team the Detroit-based bank sponsors (more here).

🔊 OTHER SPORTS NEWS
This Former NFL Wide Receiver Is Building A $100 Million Sports Tech VC Firm

• How This Former NFL Wide Receiver Is Building An $100 Million Sports Tech VC Firm. Where most athletes have struggled to make the transition into life after sports, Marques Colson has made it look easy, and now his next venture has the potential to disrupt the entire sports investment ecosystem. Alongside his partner Nick Edwards, he recently launched Champion Venture Partners and is looking to raise $100 million for the fund (more here).

• DrakeStar Officially Releases Q4 Sports Tech Report. The global tech-focused investment bank stated there were over $37 billion in deal value across 1,171 deals, surpassing the 2022 announced deal value of $21 billion by a huge margin. Get the full report (more here).

• Steve Ballmer Announces Halo Sports & Entertainment Portfolio. Halo Sports and Entertainment will be an umbrella brand that owns the Clippers and Intuit Dome, as well as the G League’s Ontario Clippers and Inglewood’s Kia Forum (more here).

• LeBron James & Drake Make A Big Bet On The PGA Tour. The basketball star and rapper are investing in the professional golf competition, marking their latest push into sports (more here).

• Sorare Lays Off 13% Of Staff. The company is not completely shuttering its New York office but is shifting more employees to Paris (more here).

• Building The First Billion-Dollar Female Sports Team. Carolyn Tisch Blodgett, Gotham FC Governor and CEO and founder of sports investment fund Next 3, says her vision is to build Gotham FC as the next great global sports franchise (more here).

• Sports Gambling Was A Gateway Drug. While more and more Americans are getting used to wagering on games from their phone, sports betting is just the start. The next step is to get people to gamble on everything (more here).

• Mercury 13 Acquires Women’s Football Club Based Near Lake Como. Mercury 13, an investment group targeting women’s football clubs, has reached its first deal, purchasing a controlling stake in FC Como Women in northern Italy (more here).

• Addressing Three Concerns About AI In The Sports Industry. Despite the many advantages, some sports organizations are hesitant to adopt these next-gen tools because of concerns revolving around issues like the threat of AI replacing human talent, whether AI-assisted content may seem stale or repetitive, and concerns around ethics (more here).