Earlier this year, on February 13th, Sporting Lagos FC played its first-ever football match, which ended in a draw. The club, which currently plays in the Nigerian National League, the country’s second tier, is the brainchild of Shola Akinlade, co-founder and CEO of financial technology company Paystack, which he says was acquired for more than $200 million in 2020 by Irish American financial services company Stripe. Akinlade says he intends for Sporting Lagos to be a platform for community development and social change. But managing a football club in Nigeria is often
NFL Star Jonathan Taylor has invested $6 million into Sports Tech company Strive in a Series A funding round. The funding round, led by venture capital firm, Future Communities Capital, included a range of investors, including SeaChange Fund and Seed to B Capital. NFL quarterback Troy Smith and Jonathan Taylor were new investors who also participated. Strive, founded by Nikola Mrvaljevic in 2016, aims to provide accurate muscle data to athletes and teams. Mrvaljevic decided to launch the company after seeing that college coaches welcomed his ideas on using data
Businessman and investor Baron Davis has announced his partnership with Hennessy for their “Never Stop Never Settle Society” campaign. The serial entrepreneur and former NBA player is set to join the team as a board member and hopes to use his experiences to help champion Black entrepreneurs. The initiative, launched by the famous liquor brand in 2021, works to accelerate the growth of Black business owners across the US. The $1 million campaign, which Hennessy developed in partnership with talent development platform Marcus Graham Project, provides 20 Black entrepreneurs with
Olympian Allyson Felix‘s footwear brand Saysh, co-founded by her brother and business partner Wes Felix, has secured an $8 million investment in its series A funding round. The funding round led by Iris Ventures, with participation from Redpoint Ventures saw Gap Inc. acquire an equity stake in Saysh. Additionally, Athleta, a subsidiary of Gap Inc., has agreed to showcase Saysh footwear on their website in partnership with the footwear brand. The news comes after Allyson Felix announced her departure from Nike in 2021, due to claims the company was not doing enough to support pregnant female athletes and
Entrepreneurs Daa’iyah Fogle, a Claflin University alumnus, and Malcolm Lee, a graduate of Virginia Union University, are the winners of the NBA Foundation’s first-ever pitch competition in partnership with Black Girl Ventures. The joint competition, held in Cleveland, allowed college-aged entrepreneurs from HBCUs across the US to participate and pitch their business ideas to a panel of judges. The entrepreneurs eligible to participate in the competition were all Black Girl Ventures’ NextGen Program members. The scheme was created to support the next generation of Black and brown business leaders attending
Calaxy, a Black-owned web3 social marketplace, has raised $26 million in strategic funding co-led by Animoca Brands and HBAR Foundation with support from Polygon. This raise follows a $7.5 million seed round in 2021 with investors like Animoca Brands, Red Beard Ventures, ArkStream Capital, NGC Ventures, and Genesis Block Ventures. The seed round also had support from NFL player Ezekiel Elliott, “The Bachelor” Matt James, and former PayPal head of Blockchain Strategy Jonathan Padilla, among others. Calaxy aims to build a new infrastructure that allows content creators, ranging from small influencers to big-time celebrities, to
Religion of Sports, the media production company founded by Gotham Chopra, Michael Strahan and Tom Brady, has raised $50 million in a Series B funding round led by Shamrock Capital and joined by Elysian Park Ventures and Cerro Capital. The Series B funding round brings the company’s total to $66 million raised over three rounds. Chopra told The Hollywood Reporter that the raise will be used to help “grow the company from the production company model, which is what we have operated in for a long time, to really controlling our own destiny. To really bet
LeBron James has officially become a billionaire, according to Forbes. This makes James the first active NBA player to reach the milestone and the second NBA player to reach billionaire status, joining retired basketball star Michael Jordan. It comes after he landed the number two spot on Forbes’ 10 Highest-Paid Athletes of 2022 list, following Lionel Messi, who snagged the number one spot. Now that James is said to be worth an estimated $1 billion, let’s break down the numbers. James has made $387 million from the Cleveland Cavaliers, Miami Heat, and Los Angeles
Web3 platform, HEIR, co-founded by Michael Jordan and his son Jeffrey Jordan, is set to introduce its first athlete membership NFTs. On the Magic Eden NFT marketplace, NBA player Lonzo Ball will be featured in an NFT collection dubbed “Zo.” HEIR launched its first NFTs in March — a collection called “6 Rings” that paid homage to MJ’s six titles. They sold out the initial 5,005 allotments for 2.3 SOL each, worth roughly $221. How does it work? Rather than simply acquiring digital collectibles of their favorite athletes, HEIR enables fans to gain membership to
Entrepreneur Jordan Edelson has announced his next venture with the launch of TradeZing, a live-streaming, social engagement, Web3 platform designed for Millennial and Gen Z traders. The platform claims to “harnesses the power of community and content creation across stocks, cryptocurrency, NFTs and the Metaverse to educate, elevate and entertain.” TradeZing’s announcement comes on the heels of their sponsorship of Bitcoin 2022 in Miami, the world’s largest Bitcoin conference of the year. It aims to create a community and provide traders with fun, educational and entertaining content. Featuring livestreams on trending
