News Update

Courtside Ventures launchess $100 mn fund III to back sports, online gaming startups


Courtside Ventures, an early-stage VC firm, has announced its $100 million Fund III to invest in global companies across sports, gaming and lifestyle sector.

With this announcement, the New York-based venture capital firm’s total committed capital now exceeds $200 million in assets under management (AUM). Courtside has invested in approximately 80 startups in eight countries.

Courtside joins CrazyLabs, Eximius Ventures, Amesten Capital, and PointOne Capital in recently launching an online gaming fund. However, the New York-based venture capital firm has so far launched the largest gaming-focused fund of 2023.

Fund III, according to the VC firm, will bring on board a group of professional sports team owners, athletes, and industry executives as limited partners.

These include the owners of several Major League Baseball teams, NBA basketball teams, and Major League Soccer (US), Premier League (UK), and La Liga football teams (Spain). Larry Fitzgerald, Shaquille O’Neal, and Jacob Trouba are among the athletes who have contributed to the fund.

Courtside Ventures’ portfolio companies include, among others, sports media platform The Athletic, Indian gaming platform WinZO, and Indian sports NFT startup FanCraze.

According to a press release, the VC firm has already deployed a portion of Fund III, investing in early-stage startups such as India’s Fello and Jackpot.com. Fello, a gamified fintech startup, raised $4 million in seed funding last month, led by Courtside Ventures.

Courtside’s pledge comes as the Indian online gaming industry seeks clarification from the government on taxation regulations.

Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman announced during the presentation of the Union Budget 2023-24 that the government will eliminate the INR 10,000 threshold for TDS payments for online gaming startups. Sitharaman also stated that the government will soon clarify taxation rules for online gaming.

In 2022, Indian gaming startups received $349 million in funding, an 80% decrease from $1.74 billion the previous year. According to a report by gaming-focused venture capital firm Lumikai, the number of gamers in the country increased by 12% to 507 million in March 2022 from 450 million the previous year.

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