NEW YORK | LONDON | LOS ANGELES | December 7th, 2022 – Drake Star is pleased to publish the Q3 2022 edition of its Global Sports Tech Industry Report providing key insights into sports tech deal activities for the first nine months of the year. So far, the year has had a record $86B in total deal value across 700+ announced and/or closed deals. The report also analyzes the key trends in the third quarter of the year.
“The Sports Tech industry has seen great consolidation in 2022, with a total of $77.5B in disclosed M&A activity year-to-date,” said Gregory Bedrosian, Managing Partner and CEO of Drake Star. “Specifically, consolidation has been strong across the Media & Broadcasting and Esports, Fantasy & Betting segments, while fan engagement technology has received nearly 40% of fundraising dollars.”
Key stats for the first 9 months of the year:
- $77.5B in announced and/or closed M&A activity across the sports tech ecosystem, with strong consolidation in Media & Broadcasting and Esports, Fantasy & Betting, including the largest-ever esports acquisition of Activision by Microsoft. Entain and Playmaker were the most active consolidators in the industry.
- $6.8B has been raised through 549 financing rounds for private companies including 16 large $100M+ raises. The most active VCs included SeventySix Capital, FJ Labs, Animoca, and Acies Investments.
- Nearly $2.7B was raised by Fan Engagement/Experience companies, with nearly 80% of the total amount raised by late-stage companies.
The Q3 report analyzes the first nine months of 2022 in terms of deal activity and volume across market segments (M&A, private placements, public markets), M&A activity by volume and multiples, public market performance and valuations, and discusses the most active sports tech buyers and venture capital (VC) investors.
The report further focuses on the market activities for Q3 2022 by breaking out the most significant deals across M&A, private financings, and public market updates. As the broader markets witnessed a slowdown, sports tech was also impacted, but M&A and financing activities remained largely stable.
- Q3 saw resilient M&A volume with 40 announced deals amid global macroeconomic slowdown fears. Entain’s announced $936M acquisition of SuperSport was the largest deal in the quarter. While the majority of the deal values were undisclosed, select buyers were highly active, including Bruin Capital with three acquisitions through its portfolio company TGI Sport (SportSeen, Brand Brigade, Interregional Sports Group) and X1 Esports and Entertainment’s two acquisitions (Shift RLE, Octane.GG).
- Private financings spanned 147 deals in Q3 with sizable growth and late-stage raises including SeatGeek ($238M), LootMogul ($200M), Therabody ($165M), and Overtime ($100M). A total of $1.3B was raised in the quarter.
- In the public markets, FaZe Clan ($750M valuation) went public through a SPAC, while FL Entertainment went public through a $4.2B SPAC with Pegasus Entrepreneurial Acquisition. Public market valuations remained relatively stable during Q3.
Drake Star Sports Tech Team:
Gregory Bedrosian, Eric Ward, Michael Metzger, Mohit Pareek, Mathilde Deschamps, Edward Page, Michael Heilweil, Chase Gibbs.
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