Moneyball U

Public markets were strong over the past week, with the S&P500/Nasdaq100 +3%/+4%. YTD the S&P500/Nasdaq100 are now +4%/+7%. Strong performance on the week was driven by (1) news of an Iran/Israel ceasefire and (2) encouraging updates from the Trump administration regarding a trade truce with China. Our NPM Private Market Tracker*, which shows the estimated average price performance of the 50 largest names in our internal Tape D® data, is now +18% YTD, significantly outperforming public markets.

On June 9, Elevate, a global sports and marketing agency, announced a new $500mm private equity fund, the “College Investment Initiative,” aimed at investing in college sports. On the heels of this announcement, it was reported that Penn State and UCLA were the first two universities to sign deals with the fund. While both UCLA and Penn State have since denied the reports, what is clear is that at some point a major college athletic department will take private capital. (Source: Sportico)

Elevate is apparently not alone in seeing the collegiate athletics opportunity. In 5/24, RedBird Capital and Weatherford Capital announced the formation of a fund called College Athletic Solutions, also with the objective of providing private capital to athletic departments in exchange for revenue sharing. (Source: Sportico)

The PE interest in university sports stems partially from a 2024 legal settlement, House vs. NCAA, which now allows college athletic departments to directly pay college athletes (Source: Ropes & Gray). The current cap is approximately $20.5mm total annual compensation per school, increasing to $33m over the next decade. With another step taken towards the effective end of “amateur” college sports, athletic departments have effectively become businesses within a market that that generated approximately $17.5bn in revenue in 2022 and is growing rapidly (+31% y/y in 2022) (Source: NCAA).

Private capital providers see the opportunity, apparently, to infuse growth capital, the same way private capital discovered professional sports in the early 2000s. While revenue in college sports is growing, capital needs are increasing due to higher expenses for salaries and facilities. Expected uses of capital include modernizing venues, providing name, image and likeness funds and expanding premium seating. We would not be surprised to see college sports emerge as a new asset class within private markets in coming years.

BIGGEST MOVERS AND TOPICAL NAMES

Based on our proprietary Tape D® data, the best performers in the private market thus far in 2025 have been x.AI (+176% estimated share price performance), Anduril Industries (+139%) and OpenAI (+119%).

RECENT EVENTS

• A Federal judge ruled that Anthropic could used content from legally purchased books in its AI models. (WSJ; 6/24)
• Before buying 49% of ScaleAI for $14.3bn, Meta had approached both Perplexity and Safe Superintelligence. (6/20; StrictlyVC)
• Softbank is seeking partners, including TSMC, for a potential $1 trillion AI and robotics hub to be built in Arizona. (6/20; Bloomberg)

NOTABLE CAPITAL RAISES

• Scenic Management raised a $150mm vehicle to buy startup shares. (6/24; StrictlyVC)
• Thinking Machines Lab, founded by former OpenAI CTO Mira Murati, raised $2bn at a $10bn valuation. (FT; 6/20)
• Ramp raised $200mm at a $16bn valuation (PR Newswire; 6/17)
• Data storage platform Vast Data is in the market to raise an undisclosed sum at a $25bn valuation (TechCrunch; 6/10)

NOTABLE EXITS

• Lime, the SF based scooter company, filed to go public via Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan. (Reuters; 6/24)
• Navan, a corporate expense management software company backed by Andreessen Horowitz, has filed to go public. (6/20; StrictlyVC)