WinZO Backer Courtside Ventures Sets Up $100 Mn Fund To Back Sports, Online Gaming Startups

Online gaming startup WinZO’s backer Courtside Ventures has launched its third VC fund with an outlay of $100 Mn. Fund III will invest in across segments of startups including sports, online gaming and lifestyle.

The announcement brings the New York-based VC firm’s total committed capital to more than $200 Mn in assets under management (AUM). Courtside has invested in around 80 startups across eight countries.

Courtside joins the likes of CrazyLabs, Eximius Ventures, Amesten Capital and PointOne Capital to have launched a fund for online gaming recently. However, the New York-based VC firm has launched the largest gaming-focused fund of 2023 so far.

According to the VC firm, Fund III will bring aboard a set of professional sports team owners, athletes and industry executives as limited partners of the fund.

These include the owners of several baseball teams in Major League Baseball, basketball teams in the NBA, and football teams in Major League Soccer (US), Premier League (UK) and La Liga (Spain). Some of the athletes that are backing the fund include Larry Fitzgerald, Shaquille O’Neal and Jacob Trouba, among others.

Deepen Parikh, partner at Courtside Ventures, said, “With Fund III we will continue to invest with conviction in great founders and disruptive ideas in our key verticals of sports, fitness, collectibles and gaming.”

Some of the more well-known portfolio companies of Courtside Ventures include sports media platform The Athletic, Indian gaming platform WinZO and Indian sports NFT startup FanCraze, among others.

The VC firm said in a press statement that it has already deployed a part of Fund III, investing in early-stage startups, including India’s Fello and Jackpot.com. Fello, which is a gamified fintech startup, raised $4 Mn in seed funding last month with Courtside Ventures leading the round.

Courtside’s commitment comes as India’s online gaming industry is seeking clarity from the government over taxation regulations.

During the presentation of the Union Budget 2023-24, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman announced that the government will do away with the threshold of INR 10,000 for TDS payments for online gaming startups. Sitharaman also said the government will clarify taxation norms for online gaming soon.

In 2022, Indian gaming startups bagged $349 Mn in funding, down 80% compared to $1.74 Bn in the previous year. According to a report by gaming-focused VC firm Lumikai, the number of gamers in the country jumped to 507 Mn in March 2022 from 450 Mn, a 12% rise from the year-ago period.