SportsTech in 2022: A Global Overview

Published in

SportsTechX

4 min readMay 11, 2022

2021 was a big one

For the last 5 years, the end of Q1 has brought a round of new SportsTech Ecosystem reports from the SportsTechX team. In April we published the 2022 editions of our Europe, North America and Asia-Pacific reports covering data and insights from the last 5 years, with special focus on 2021. After all, it was an incredible year for SportsTech with over $12.7b invested in startups globally.

If reading a (beautifully crafted) report doesn’t sound too appealing, at the end of April we hosted a 90 mins webinar going over insights from all three reports. Highlights uploaded onto our YouTube channel if you could not attend.

And if you’re looking for something even quicker, say a 5 mins read, this article will cover the top 3 highlights. Download the reports for more.

1. Funding by region: North America dominates

North America is clearly the biggest region for SportsTech, accounting for more than half the funding from 2021. Within North America, USA accounts for 86% and Canada for 14% of investment, so not too much happening outside of those countries.

Asia-Pacific is the fastest growing region, on the back of big investments in India, China & Hong Kong. Europe remains a distant third, same as it has been since we started compiling this data in 2018. France, Germany and UK are the top 3 countries there.

2. Top 5 Cities: Mumbai explodes into 1st

SportsTech had a dream year in Mumbai as the city topped the funding charts globally for investment. Fantasy Sports giant Dream11 alone accounts for 94% of that figure (~$1.2b) after a couple of mega funding rounds in 2021. Similar stories in Jacksonville and Paris, home to Fanatics and Sorare respectively, who also had raised big rounds. By contrast, in San Francisco the top round accounted for 25% and in New York it was 14%.

When it comes to number of deals completed, the order is New York, San Francisco, London. Those cities remain the busiest hubs for investment activity.

3. Top 5 Companies: Dream11 takes top spot

Dream11’s latest funding round in 2021 was at a nifty $8b valuation while earlier in the year, they announced a $250m SportsTech fund, turning the fantasy of a dedicated SportsTech fund from India into reality.

Fanatics has shifted from being purely an ecommerce services provider by expanding their offering to include Digital & Physical collectibles (they own Candy Digital, setup a Trading Cards division & acquired Topps in 2022) and a Sportsbook.

NFTs in Sports were all the rage in 2021. Sorare & Dapper Labs were just some of the names that made moves with investors. Alongside Animoca Brands and Candy Digital, these are now clearly the big players in the Sports NFTs space.

Mindbody ranks as the only FitnessTech player in the top 5, that topic still working out for quite a few.

Bonus: Top SportsTech Trends from 2021

Okay, done with the top 3 takeaways. Here’s a quick word on the biggest trends

NFTs & the Metaverse: Globally trending topic, over $2.5b invested in Sports NFT startups in 2021. Despite fluctuations in performance of NFTs, investors have remained bullish. It’s all about utility now. The big M word follows.
Fantasy Sports & Betting: All about the money, in different parts of the world. Sports Betting has taken over the US sports market. Fantasy Sports is still a mega topic in India. Implications for the rest of the world are very significant.
FitnessTech: Connected fitness devices isn’t as hot a topic as in 2020 but that doesn’t mean it’s going away. A growing market for fitness globally means that investors still have an appetite. New topics emerge — hybrid of at-home & in-gyms, VR based fitness, recovery & deeper data insights.