Where Sapphire Sport will invest its second fund

Our guest on the podcast this week is Michael Spirito, lead investor at Sapphire Sport and part of the team responsible for deploying the firm’s recently announced $180m second fund. Where to invest that volume of capital is a tantalising proposition – but it’s far from a simple one. Today's macro-economic landscape is very different to 2019, when Sapphire made its first investments.

But the economics aren't the only thing to have changed. In the post-pandemic world, the digital-first preferences and behaviours of Gen Z and Alpha are melding with new forms of sports media, gaming and e-commerce. This, reckons Michael, opens up space for exciting innovation and development.

“Our dominant thesis is that the next generation of consumers are doing things fundamentally differently,” he says. We couldn’t agree more.

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