Investing in the future of entertainment, communities and participation
Deepen Parikh of Courtside Ventures on investing in sports & media, fitness & wellness, and gaming.
Video Transcript
ADAM SHAPIRO: We welcome into the stream Deepen Parikh. He is Courtside Ventures' partner, co-founder. It's good to have you here. You just completed a $75 million second fundraising, rather second fund, in which you're going to deploy this money. Because you've already invested in several successful companies, one of which was just acquired by Microsoft, correct?
DEEPEN PARIKH: Yeah, thank you for having me on. We are in the midst of closing up our second fund, so we still have a little bit more to raise. But this is our second vehicle. Our first one was a $35 million fund, focused on the same exact verticals, so sports and media, fitness and wellness, and gaming. We were fortunate where one of our companies, Beam, was acquired by Microsoft. Now that was a little bit back, it was a couple of years back, but Microsoft since turned that into one of their large initiatives in the gaming sector. But yeah, we're doing our best to find the best entrepreneurs, focused on these verticals.
SEANA SMITH: Deepen, when you look for the entrepreneurs that are focused on these verticals, you've obviously had a lot of success in the past. What's the criteria that you have for identifying these potential investments?
DEEPEN PARIKH: Yeah, you know when we look at the sports industry, or fitness, or wellness, or gaming, really a lot of it comes down to people who have a really deep understanding of the space itself. So having been previously started companies, having worked more on the corporate operational side, team is the most important thing to us. We're coming in extremely early stage, a lot of times before there's even a product in market, or sometimes even cases where a product is not even built. And so a lot of what we look at is betting on the team, and the market size and opportunity, and following some of the major trends that we believe can help shape the industries on a global level.
ADAM SHAPIRO: Some of the investments you've already made, though, some people might think that this is just about sports gaming, or the opportunity to watch sports. But there's, for instance, the investment in Gainful. I went to the website and I clicked on them, they make protein powders and other nutritional supplements?
DEEPEN PARIKH: They do, yes. So one of the big theses we focus on right now in Courtside Ventures is the fact that consumers want personalization. So the ability to go into the Gainful platform and put in your own personal profile, your weight, your goals, and then getting a personalized ingredient mix that is catered to you itself. So Gainful has done a really phenomenal job of starting in sports nutrition and protein products. You can go in today put in your dietary preferences, goals and within a matter of a few days, you'll have your own personalized blend of protein products that cater to you, your lifestyle, and your goals
SEANA SMITH: Deepen, I wanna go back to what you said a little bit earlier, and that's the fact that you're looking at companies in these very early stages. What is the bigger picture look like for startups right now? Is it tougher to get traction in this current environment as we see COVID cases surge once again?
DEEPEN PARIKH: You know, it really depends on the industry, I think. You know, in times where there's so many more people at home, or working from home, families, we have actually seen far more traction and adoption within the world of community type plays, so stuff like gaming and in fitness. To give you an example, 35% more people working out in the midst of COVID than prior. And close to 70% of all people who are working out at home now, are buying fitness equipment. So, you know, at a time where younger generations are more focused on their health experiences, a lot of things that maybe older generations are not thinking about, this is a really interesting time where traction is actually not the challenge. The challenge really is more modernization, being able to ensure that that traction sustains, once we have a vaccine in place.
