Sapphire Sport

Investing in early-stage technology companies at the nexus of tech and culture.

Our Platform
A first-of-its-kind investing approach at the nexus of tech and culture.

We launched a new category when we created Sapphire Sport by marrying our deep tech investing fundamentals with a world-class LP base across global sport, media and entertainment brands. The result is a venture capital platform that gives founders of all stripes access to the resources of global brands who are creating the next generation’s companies of consequence.

Portfolio

Our Portfolio —

We believe now more than ever people want to engage with the brands and communities that inspire them, and the path to do so starts with technology.

VIEW LEGAL DISCLOSURES

Our Backers —

We bring together investors with long histories of building and monetizing loyal and passionate communities. Our LPs offer the capital and industry-defining experience of premier global sporting, media and lifestyle brands, including City Football Group, owners of English Premier League champions Manchester City; owners and investors from major U.S. sports franchises—NFL, MLB, NBA, WNBA, NHL, and MLS—as well as strategic entertainment organizations, family offices and institutional investors.

VIEW LEGAL DISCLOSURES

How We Invest —

Company Stage and Focus

We primarily invest in Seed, Series A and B-stage technology companies, which are focused on large markets with powerful growth trends, driven by the next generation of passionate consumers, as well as enabling technologies for those markets.

Investment Size

We typically invest between $3M and $10M as our initial investment, acting as a lead or co-lead. We selectively invest $1-3M in seed or syndicate deals. We work well with others, just ask our CEOs.

Web3
Gaming + Metaverse
Media + Entertainment
Fitness + Wellness
Culture + Community

A Family Approach —

We believe in building communities because that’s who we are too: a family of partners, investors, and founders who energize and empower one another in an effort to push us all forward. In a market where it’s easy to be seduced by hype or driven by FOMO, we can be counted on for an authentic partnership that’s made to last. As part of this, our Portfolio Growth team supports our portfolio through customer, partner, and talent introductions from our deep bench of industry contacts.

Sport Team —

Doug Higgins
Partner
Michael Spirito
Partner
Rico Mallozzi
Principal
Mackenzie Chapman
Associate
Vlad Cristea
Associate
Andrew Yanover
Associate
Alyce Fusco (Goudeau)
Executive Assistant

Learn More About Our Portfolio —

Co-Founder + CEO: James Borow

Growth chatbot that lets you chat with your ads, products, creatives, and more
Learn More
Founder: Aly Orady

The smartest home gym, ever. Tonal gets smarter as you get stronger.
Learn More
Founder: Delane Parnell

PlayVS is a leading amateur esports platform. Players come together to compete, fans gather to spectate and coaches manage their programs. Through strategic partnerships with the NFHS and top game publishers, PlayVS has become the backbone of high school esports.
Learn More
Founder: Patricio Worthalter

POAP is a new way of keeping a reliable record of life experiences. Each time they take part on an event, POAP collectors get a unique badge that is supported by a cryptographic record. These badges are Non Fungible Tokens (NFT) and open a whole new world of possibilities.
Learn More
Co-Founder + CEO: Jesse Houston

Phoenix Labs is an independent game company creating games for a passionate community. They’re evolving the way great games are made and enjoyed. They aspire to create new AAA gaming experiences that their community will share for years to come.
Learn More
Founders: Dan Porter and Zack Weiner

OTE (Overtime Elite) is a transformative new sports league that offers the world’s most talented young basketball players a better pathway to becoming professional athletes and engage and inspire a new generation of fans.
Learn More
Founders: Pedro Presa + Joao Presa

MyCujoo empowers sport federations, leagues and clubs to easily livestream their competitions and matches by combining low costs of production with state-of-the art quality and technology, enabling the creation of a worldwide sports network of nano-communities.
Learn More
Founders: Mike Einziger + Ann Marie Simpson-Einziger

Mixhalo enables live event organizers to give audiences exactly what they came for, by delivering high-quality, real-time audio directly to attendees' own ...
Learn More
Founder: Frederic Descamps

Manticore Games™ is the developer and operator of Core, a creator-led gaming platform that is setting the global standard for user-generated gaming content. Core empowers creators with the best tech, tools and developer-friendly economic terms in the marketplace.
Learn More
Co-Founder + CEO: Akshay K. Khanna

Jackpot is an enabling software platform company pioneering the digital transformation of the lottery industry to enable global digital lottery access and native igaming. Having already launched in key European markets such as the United Kingdom, Malta, Ireland, and Sweden, Jackpot is expanding its product offering to the US market through the launch of a digital lottery procurement service.
Learn More
CoFounder + CEO: Tony Grillo

ForKeeps - NBA LALIGA is the officially licensed game for nextgen picks, multiplayer action games and building your ultimate sports collection. Play, reward and celebrate fandom with friends 🤝
Learn More
Founder + CEO: Kalle Törmä

Flowhaven is the leading brand licensing management platform enabling licensing professionals to automate every phase of the brand licensing workflow, including planning, strategy, account and agreement management, content distribution, design approvals and more.
Learn More
Founder + CEO: Ari Daie

Fevo enables “social commerce” with powerful payments technology that makes it easy to bring people together and create unforgettable group live event experiences. Users share event details, split payments across attractions and direct-to-consumer ecommerce brands.
Learn More
Founder + CEO: Bo Han

Buzzer is a notification-driven mobile platform for short-form live sports personalized for fans. With customized, curated, and mobile-first alerts, the next generation of sports fans never miss out on the most exciting moments in live entertainment.
Learn More
Co-Founder + CEO: Maxwell Gomez

Breathwrk's mission is to change the health of the world through breathing. The app offers easy to follow and highly effective guided breathing exercises that alleviate anxiety, promote sleep, increase energy, improve mood, help with athletic performance, and more.
Learn More
Co-Founders: Ryan Mullins and Owen Batt

Aglet is a publisher and developer of sneaker-focused, location-based spatial commerce experiences for Gen-Z. Aglet was created to reimagine the commerce experience by fusing virtual and physical worlds and location-based gameplay.
Learn More