Van Nice graduated a year behind Boehly at Landon School in Bethesda, Md., where both were league champion wrestlers. He’d tracked down Dodgers co-owner Todd Boehly to catch up over dinner in midtown Manhattan. Van Nice was in the process of selling Flyby Media, the mobile computer vision firm he’d co-founded, to Apple and was looking for a venture capital opportunity in sports. And to hear its managing partners tell it, they’re still just getting started.Įlysian’s roots stretch back to 2014. Critically, Elysian is leveraging some of the sports world’s wealthiest team owners, rolling out a suite of support services companies and partnering with industry insiders on sector-specific funds to minimize exposure in the risk-dominated venture space. Elysian’s managing partners say they’re now looking to “meaningfully” scale their total invested capital and that the firm has thus far realized top-quartile returns on seven exits. The firm has amassed stakes in nearly 70 companies and has managed investments of over $400 million. Indeed, no sports-specific VC firm is deploying as much capital nor has taken such significant steps to set its portfolio up for success. While Elysian’s competitors may dispute that claim, there’s no debate that Elysian has emerged as a leader in the field. The firm, led by co-managing partners Jay Adya (left) and Cole Van Nice, has taken a stake in nearly 70 firms and managed investments of over $400 million. “I would go so far as to say there’s not a portfolio of companies anywhere in the world that is having as profound an impact on shaping the future of the sports industry as the group assembled in this room,” Elysian co-managing partner Cole Van Nice told his rapt audience that sunny morning while dressed in an Angel City FC hoodie and black-and-blue Air Jordans. That morning’s crowd included entrepreneurs from the U.S., Australia, Europe, India and Israel, and their companies span all areas of sports with customers including athletes, fans, coaches, families, teams, leagues and broadcasters from the youth to professional levels. The VC firm, funded by the Dodgers’ ownership group led by billionaire Mark Walter, has recently been among the most active investors in sports startups. Those entrepreneurs had come together for the first-ever portfolio company summit of Elysian Park Ventures. Less than 12 hours after the Midsummer Classic, the ballpark welcomed a far smaller but no less distinguished group, as the founders of 55 sports startups gathered in the stadium’s Yaamava’ Dugout Club alongside top industry executives. In July 2022, Dodger Stadium hosted a record-breaking crowd of more than 152,000 fans across a three-day span of MLB All-Star events.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |