🔊 Meet The Investor Pouring Tens Of Millions Into Women's Sports

This week, billionaire team owner Michele Kang announced the launch of the Kang Women’s Institute, a $25 million women’s sports–focused organization housed within US Soccer’s Soccer Forward Foundation.

Another $30 million will go toward youth sports and coaching development, bringing her total commitment to $55 million.

The organization aims to research the needs of female athletes, from their particular requirements for injury recovery and reentry after pregnancy to best practices for coaching girls in youth sports.

Kang currently owns the Washington Spirit, London City Lionesses, OL Lyon, and minority stakes in several other clubs.

In 2024, she also launched Kynisca, an organization built to power women’s sports across performance, business, and media.

Overall, she has invested tens of millions of dollars into women’s sports over the past few years.

Why Does This Matter?

It isn’t a secret that historically, women’s sports have been underrepresented and underinvested in.

When you look at the numbers, the gap is almost unbelievable.

Just five years ago:

And yet women make up nearly half of all sports participants.

For decades, the data, funding, and scientific frameworks were all built around men.

Even though women face completely different challenges biologically:

Sports science has never caught up for them, and frankly, it was never taken into consideration on a massive scale.

That’s what makes Kang’s $55 million investment so important.

She’s addressing the root cause, including the lack of sound research, various health considerations, and the pathways for girls and women to thrive across their entire athletic lifespan.

This is what women’s sports need to build the systems and structure that have been missing for decades.

If the last few years proved anything, it’s that women’s sports aren’t a niche anymore.

It’s on an unreal tear that doesn’t seem to be slowing down and investments like these continue to push the entire industry forward in a major way.

• Kalshi Raises $1B. Kalshi, the world’s largest predictions market, announced a Series E funding round of $1 billion at an $11 billion valuation. The round was led by Paradigm, with participation from Sequoia, Andreessen Horowitz, Meritech Capital, IVP, ARK Invest, Anthos Capital, CapitalG, and Y Combinator. The latest funding comes less than two months after Kalshi announced that it raised $300 million at a $5 billion valuation. The company simultaneously announced partnerships with CNN and CNBC this week (more here).

• Outlier Raises $10.7M. Outlier, a sports betting technology company, announced the close of an $10.7 million Series A funding round. The round includes $5.7 million in equity financing led by Discerning Capital, and an additional $5 million in dedicated user acquisition financing arranged to accelerate subscriber growth. The Series A will accelerate Outlier’s next phase of growth as it expands its products, enhances its user experience, and deepens its presence in the rapidly expanding sports betting sector (more here).

• Track Titan Raises $5M. Track Titan, an AI-powered online coaching and community platform for sim and real auto racing, raised $5 million in Seed funding co-led by Partech Partners and Game Changers Ventures. The round was led by Partech and Game Changers Ventures with participation from Colton Parayko, Trevoh Chalobah, Sequel, Martin Hoffmann, Emmanuel Tahar, and APX. The company intends to use the funds to expand its operations and development efforts (more here).

• Arcturus Raises $2.3M. Arcturus, a tech company that captures and delivers real sports action in 3D volumetric video, serving broadcasters, teams, leagues, venues, and agencies, raised $2.3 million in Seed funding. LDV Capital led the round with participation from Myelin VC, Vanderbilt University, and angel investors, including Harvard Business School Alumni Angels of Greater New York. The company intends to use the funds to expand its operations and development efforts (more here).

• TIDA Sports Raises $300K+. TIDA Sports, a multi-sports training and coaching platform, has raised INR 3 crore (around $330k) in a Seed funding round led by Inflection Point Ventures. The startup said the fresh capital will support its expansion into five states and 30 cities while also helping it upgrade its technology platforms. The funds will also be used to strengthen its B2B operations, onboard additional coaches, and scale on-ground marketing activities (more here).

• Genius Sports & FanDuel Announce Partnership. Genius Sports, a global sports data technology company, has entered into a partnership with the FanDuel Sports Network. Through the deal, Genius's Intelligent Content Platform software will be utilized during coverage of NBA and WNBA basketball on the regional sports broadcasting brand to "empower brand partners with premium, in-game ad inventory," across linear, digital, and streaming coverage. The deal spans over 300 NBA games per campaign, as well as WNBA action (more here).

• Major League Pickleball & Owl AI Announce Partnership. Major League Pickleball (MLP) and Owl AI, a sports technology company that uses AI to improve performance analytics and decision-making in sports, have announced a partnership for the 2026 season. Owl AI is introducing artificial intelligence for line calling in Major League Pickleball, a recurring problem in the league. The system will sit behind standard cameras to facilitate judging decisions and will integrate with existing MLP broadcast cameras (more here).

• LOVB & Victory+ Announce Partnership. League One Volleyball (LOVB), the largest brand in youth volleyball and the first-of-its-kind youth-to-pro volleyball league in the US, announced a multi-year media rights partnership with Victory+, a free, ad-supported streaming service for sports fans, to expand access to LOVB's match play and off-court content. As part of the agreement, Victory+ will broadcast more than 20 regular-season matches each year, along with select postseason matches, including two postseason events in the 2026 season (more here).

• Fanatics Launches A Prediction Market. Fanatics, the leading global sports merchandiser company, has become the first sportsbook to launch prediction markets. Fanatics Markets, as it’s called, is available in 24 states as of this week, with initial trades including sports, finance, and culture, before expanding to crypto, music, and more. Crypto.com will offer prediction market’s pricing, as Fanatics has also established a partnership with the crypto giant (more here).

• Mets Owner Steve Cohen Awarded Casino License. Mets owner Steve Cohen has officially been awarded a casino license in New York, enabling him to build an $8 billion hotel and casino complex next to Citi Field. Cohen and the entertainment company Hard Rock had spent years lobbying local officials and residents to support their plan to build a casino next to the Mets’ Citi Field in the borough of Queens. They have estimated spending $8 billion on the project, which would include a hotel and concert venue, and connect with the future site of New York City Football Club’s stadium (more here).

• Cristiano Ronaldo Invests In Perplexity AI. Football star Cristiano Ronaldo has taken a stake of undisclosed size in AI startup Perplexity, the company announced this week. Football's first billionaire soccer star has built a $1.4 billion business empire by investing primarily in his native Portugal. Bloomberg described the Perplexity deal, which includes a sponsorship agreement, as his "most high-profile investment to date.” Launched in 2022, the US startup was valued at $20 billion in September and is positioning its AI search product as a rival to Google (more here).

• Grass League Announces Las Vegas Expansion. Grass League, the world's first high-stakes par-three golf league, announced that Las Vegas Action has been awarded the league's next expansion franchise. The Sports Group Endeavors has acquired the new team for $1 million. The transaction represents a significant milestone in the league's ongoing expansion, as it also looks to explore a dedicated home site in Las Vegas. Future expansion markets include, but are not limited to, Boston, San Francisco, Denver, Chicago, Austin, Houston, Miami, Korea, Tokyo, Mexico City, and several major European cities (more here).

• Yahoo Launches AI-Powered Game Breakdowns. Yahoo Sports has announced Game Breakdowns, which deliver smart insights and analysis that add context around the numbers in a box score. Accessible on Yahoo Sports app NFL game pages, these breakdowns update in real-time to catch fans up on the latest about a game, no matter when they open the Yahoo Sports app. The tool represents Yahoo's ambitious push into AI-driven sports content that goes beyond basic stats to capture the human stories that make games compelling (more here).

• Full Swing Expands Into Baseball. Full Swing, the golf simulator and launch monitor trusted by Tiger Woods and other top professionals, is expanding its innovative and award-winning technology to a new sport with the introduction of its KIT Launch Monitor for baseball. KIT for baseball marks the opening of a significant new chapter for Full Swing, the Official Licensed Simulator of the PGA TOUR and an Official Technology Partner of TGL presented by SoFi, the tech-infused, indoor golf league co-founded by Woods and Rory McIlroy (more here).

• Fujitsu Launches Fujitsu Sports Accelerator Program. Fujitsu, a Japanese IT company, has announced the launch of the "Fujitsu Accelerator Program for SPORTS," a global partner co-creation program to foster innovation in the sports sector. Through Fujitsu Accelerator, Fujitsu will collaborate with startups and other companies to create new businesses and solve challenges by leveraging cutting-edge technologies, including AI and quantum computing. This new program aims to expand the value and monetization potential of corporate sports (more here).

This week’s guest on the Vetted Sports podcast is Kushaan Ahuja.

Kushaan Ahuja is a Partner at Will Ventures, an investment firm focused on sports, entertainment, and consumer brands.

Before joining Will Ventures, Kushaan led venture & growth investments at the sports and entertainment conglomerates, Endeavor and TKO.

During his time there, he led investments across Consumer AI, Creator Economy, Gaming, Emerging CPG, and Sports.

Previously, he worked as an investment banker at J.P. Morgan, where he covered clients in the Technology, Internet, and Digital Media sectors.

In this episode, we discuss:
‣ Will Ventures’ investment thesis and strategy
‣ AI's impact on the live sports environment
‣ Thoughts around the future of the creator economy and athlete-led businesses

Check out the full episode here: Apple | Spotify | YouTube