1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Deepen Parikh of Courtside Ventures (Part 5)

Deepen Parikh: We want to plan the infrastructure side. Obviously, 4G in India and the infrastructure that Jio has created is a game changer for a lot of content that is being consumed.

Similarly if you look at something like China, the market is big enough to have direct deals with some of the major sports leagues. Every country, at the end of the day, comes down to the same thing. How do you engage the community aspect? How do you create engagement?

It’s not just viewing the match itself. What you’re really paying for is, are brands going to get their value in tapping into this demographic? We try to determine where all the different brands can engage with that coveted younger demographic.

They may not watch three of four hours at a time, but they’re probably checking their app 20 times a day.

Sramana Mitra: On the other hand if you look at soccer, that’s a whole different dynamic, right?

Deepen Parikh: Soccer is very different. A lot of it stems from people being more team-driven or player-driven. People are team-driven in the older generation. Now it’s more player-driven.

If a player goes from one team to another, people shift their allegiance because they care about the player. It’s the same thing for soccer. People care a lot about the teams, but there’s a lot of loyalty behind the players.

When they shift to another club, that draws a lot of value for that new franchise. Soccer is a fascinating beast to look at. You have leagues for the countries, but you also have the national teams.

The country teams don’t necessarily coincide where the player plays. You can look at people in Brazil who love certain European clubs. That’s what ties the global nature of soccer.

We look a lot at soccer in terms of different technologies. The beauty of soccer also is that affinity starts at a very young age. Youth participation is not like other sports where players start playing at 10 or 11. These are playing at 4 or 5.

Sramana Mitra: In the portfolio of 30 companies you invested in, are there any others that you want to talk about that highlights something else?

Deepen Parikh: One is a company called The Drone Racing League. It’s an opportunity to own new sports. Drone Racing League has made a business where they make their own drones. They own the league. They own the IP, media rights, and the eventual video game revenue.

That end-to-end ownership was really appealing to us. The founder of that is absolutely brilliant. One thing that he did early on is, he focused mainly on building a brand. Some people may have seen it before, but on ESPN, you could see the Drone Racing League.

They have created a lot of awareness not only in the US but also throughout Europe. We can’t own basketball. NBA owns basketball. Soccer is owned by EPL, La Liga, FIFA, and UEFA. This was an opportunity to own a sport. We’re constantly thinking about that. No sport lasts the test of time. That’s something else that we look at a lot.

The fourth is more on the esports side, which is taking massive tailwind behind it in terms of the amount of content consumption on places like YouTube and Twitch. We invested in a company called FanAI, which is an audience monetization and data platform for the video gaming industry.

They go and they aggregate third-party data from streaming platforms and publishers. They also have an exclusive with a large payment provider. They create this holistic view on what a gamer looks like. That enables brands to come in and buy. It opens up the entire gaming industry and allows brands to be a larger part of that ecosystem.

This segment is part 5 in the series : 1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Deepen Parikh of Courtside Ventures
1 2 3 4 5 6