Courtside Ventures

After launching in New Jersey earlier this year, Jackpot.com has continued its run of bringing lottery to the digital realm. Check out CEO Akshay K. Khanna's interview with NJ Biz detailing the exciting growth. Link in comments!

🚨 We've been eagerly awaiting the day for the world to see what Mountaintop Studios has been working on... Thrilled for Nate Mitchell, Matt Hansen, and team who today unveiled Spectre Divide: a 3v3 multiplayer PC game with a twist. Link in the comments with more on the game!

🔻 It's no secret that venture funds have been deeply impacted by the lack of liquidity in IPO and M&A markets over the past couple of years. 💰 Distributions from VC funds to LPs dropped 84% from 2021 to 2023 per Wellington Management, resulting in a 14-year low in overall distributions. 🇮🇳 Despite the anemic deal activity in the US markets, one market has far surpassed all others and continues to buck the liquidity trend: India. 🤑 Per Axios, India saw private capital-backed exits reach $25B in 2023 and has already surpassed $11.5B in the first half of 2024. Over these past 18 months, India has accounted for the highest share (37%) of overall exit value outside of North America and Europe...even surpassing China. 🏅 Not only has the country seen outsized deal and exit activity, but it has also experienced rapid growth specifically within sports and gaming. 🏏 Of the country's 1.4B people, an estimated 678M (47%) are now considered sports fans per Ormax Sports, roughly double the entire US population, with sports-related Google searches up 50% in the country this year. The Indian sports pandemonium hasn't been limited to just the country's borders. Just a couple of weeks ago, the US hosted the ICC Men's T20 Cricket World Cup, with jaw-dropping attendance numbers of 165k fans across the tournament as India's sports culture is successfully making its way into the US and abroad. 🎮 The Indian gaming ecosystem is also experiencing rampant growth. The country is now the fastest-growing mobile gaming market in the world per Interactive Entertainment, expecting to double in value from $3.1B in 2023 to over $6B by 2028. With over 568 million gamers and (even more noteworthy) 240 million paid gamers, the country is seeing unrivaled demand in various sectors of the gaming landscape. Courtside has long seen India as a market ripe for venture investment, having made 6 investments in the country within the past 4 years. With a rapidly growing population of sports / media / gaming fans, increasing venture deal volume, and an attractive exit market, we couldn't be more bullish on the future of venture in India. Check out the comments to see the full Axios article as well as Courtside's former blog post on India. Photo cred: Annelise Capossela/Axios

Hard to describe the level of innovation at Camb.ai in the AI voice cloning and localization space. 🤯 Check out their new Mars5 model, bringing unprecedented realism to digital voice replication across 140 different languages. https://lnkd.in/gzcauukE

🚨 Sports Business Journal recently recognized Courtside as a Power Player among sports institutional investors. Check out their article below! https://lnkd.in/grwJ4SMe

🚨 Announcing Kabata's $5M Seed round! Courtside is thrilled to be a part of the journey with Kareem Aly and the entire Kabata team, as they revolutionize strength training. The company's AI-powered dumbbells are now available for pre-order. https://lnkd.in/gBw4WfRC

Collecting isn’t a hobby, it’s an asset class…with staggering scale that continues to grow: 🎴 61% of the US population collects something... 🌎  The global collectibles market is expected to surpass $1T in by 2032, with major categories including art ($68B), watches ($37B), sports memorabilia ($26B) and more... 🏅  Record collectible sale prices continue to be set in everything from Princess Diana dresses ($605k price tag), to iPhones ($190k for a first-gen model), to Joe Montana jerseys ($1.2M sale from Super Bowl XIX and XXII) and more Since investing in StockX in 2017, Courtside has backed dozens of platforms, marketplaces, and technology companies focused on the collectibles space including Bezel , Mantel, Cohart, Altan Insights, and more. As the industry continues to grow, we will continue to back the technology and tools that power collector ecosystems on a global level. If you are or know of a founder building a startup in the collectibles space, we’d love to speak with you. Drop us a comment, tag a founder below,  or shoot us a message at hello@courtsidevc.com.

🏃♀️ Calling all health & wellness enthusiasts! 🍎 Courtside has invested in various segments of the health ecosystem, with several of our companies actively hiring, including: ⏱ Future 💪 Freeletics 🥛 Gainful ...and many more! Check out our jobs page to see the latest opportunities at some of the most exciting companies in the space. https://lnkd.in/gnqTmTY5

VC has always been a private, closed-off industry. In an effort to (slightly) peel back the curtain, we decided to launch our first ever edition of Courtside Ventures By The Numbers! We get into various stats, metrics, and learnings across some of our early funds including: 💵  Check sizes and follow-on strategies ☠  Survival rates across the portfolio 🤑  LP Distributions …and much more! https://lnkd.in/guV2zvRW

📱 Gamers are taking over the world, and are doing so with only a phone 📈 With mobile adoption and wireless connectivity hitting all-time highs, mobile gaming has never been more accessible  🌎 Most recently, total mobile gamers were forecasted to surpass 2 billion globally in 2024…meaning that 1 in 4 humans on the planet will be mobile gamers 🇮🇳 🇧🇷 Driving this growth, the MENA and LATAM sectors are experiencing the fastest growth in gamer populations (12% and 6% respectively) At Courtside, we have been investing in the gaming space since 2016 and have backed early-stage companies across the globe such as WinZO, 100 Thieves, Eloelo, Betty, and more. If you are or know of a founder building a startup in the gaming sector, we’d love to speak with you. Drop us a comment, tag a founder below,  or shoot us a message at hello@courtsidevc.com.