Bluestone Equity Partners

Bluestone Equity Partners Invests in Volo Sports, the Nation’s Largest Social and Recreational Sports Network (Official Press Release)

Thanks Bloomberg for the exclusive feature on Bluestone Equity Partners’ 6th portfolio company out of our $300M Growth/Buyout Fund I — Volo Sports, the largest social & recreational sports business in America. We’re particularly fond of this company, and proud of this investment — one representing the future of an entire sector within the #Sports, #Media & #Entertainment industry. In true Bluestone fashion, a deal reflective of the unique vision and relentless discipline our truly value-added, specialized capital brings to the #PrivateEquity market. Vision: identifying, nurturing, and enabling a proprietary value creation opportunity at scale — in aggregate, social recreational sports in the United States has been measured as a $4.6B sector — hidden in plain sight, with a long tail of localized fragmentation. Discipline: researching, strategizing, and executing a market approach, building towards a true growth return profile, and structuring with an ability to add the full weight of our global industry expertise and relationships — including synergies with existing Bluestone companies, a key element of our thoughtful portfolio construction. As discussed with Bloomberg: “We’re looking to grow revenue and value through consolidation, and also by investing in people, technology, and operations. But primarily there is a massive M&A opportunity here that we will enable.” A very warm welcome to the Bluestone family to Volo Sports and its Founder & CEO Giovanni Marcantoni. We look forward to building and growing the Sports, Media & Entertainment economy together.

Bluestone Founder & Managing Partner Bobby Sharma recently shared insights with Private Equity International for a PE Hub analysis of the Court of Justice of the European Union ruling on the FIFA rules regulating the European #football player transfer system, including potential implications for #privateequity investment. Among them: “Literally billions of dollars are at stake — with respect to the stakeholders in the transfer fee system, such as players, agents, and clubs, as well as the valuation of many clubs themselves...” “From an investment perspective, it was probably not advisable to underwrite true returns to player transfer fees in the first place, owing to the many inherent variables, and general disjointedness from the core business. In fact, one could argue a business model focused on growing such fees is undermining to the actual business of a football club, which is to say, maximizing performance on the pitch...” “The ruling could have a similar systemic undermining effect as #NIL and the O’Bannon antitrust case has had on the #NCAA in the United States…”

Many thanks to SuperReturn for the invitation to speak on the advantages of specialized #PrivateEquity at their annual flagship #APAC conference, SuperReturn Asia 2024 — a unique event with thousands from around the world, and especially the Asia-Pacific region. Having worked and spent time on the ground for years (during my time as a senior executive at both the National Basketball Association (NBA) and IMG) in this incredibly vibrant, dynamic, and diverse part of the world — one in which sport has long been deeply ingrained in its many cultures, and in recent years, an increasingly meaningful part of its flourishing economies — it was particularly gratifying to connect with APAC finance and business leaders on the myriad growth opportunities for #Sports, #Media & #Entertainment as an institutional asset class, and the great work we're doing at Bluestone Equity Partners (including investments in 2 portfolio companies, and 2 strategic follow-on M&A's, originating from this region). Stay tuned, much more to come at Bluestone!

Looking forward to my keynote at the upcoming Pension Bridge Annual #APAC Chief Investment Officer conference in Hong Kong on Monday, 16 September, unpacking risks and opportunities in #Sports, #Media & #Entertainment as an emerging institutional asset class. Hope you can join us! #CIO #privateequity

One of my best decisions has been getting involved in the United States Olympic & Paralympic Committee movement, currently led by my Duke University schoolmate Sarah Hirshland. On that journey with several National Governing Bodies (NGB’s) of sport in the United States, I’ve been fortunate to become Chair of the Nominating Committee for USA Table Tennis, and a Member of the Board of Directors at both USA Archery and the (USTA) United States Tennis Association. Led by another fellow Duke alumnus Lewis Sherr, the USTA has advanced its mission like few other organizations in the world in recent years, having grown the sport of tennis to nearly 25 million players in the U.S. with a goal of reaching 35 million by 2035 (i.e., “35 by 35”). On the back of respected studies published by the Mayo Clinic and British Journal of Sports Medicine (BJSM) highlighting its health benefits (e.g., concluding it’s arguably the healthiest sport in the world, adding nearly a decade to its players lives), and the growth of the US Open as not just a sporting event, but a major global cultural touchpoint… #tennis is having a moment. Over the last three weeks, the U.S. Open drew over 1 million fans to the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center for the first time — making it the second most attended sporting event in the world — where American tennis was able to cheer 5 women in the top 15, and 5 men in the top 20, to half the Women's & Men's Singles Semifinal spots, including great runs by Jessica Pegula and Taylor Fritz to the Finals. Other successes included a runner-up finish in Mixed Doubles by the team of Taylor Townsend & Donald Young, and — near and dear to my heart — a win for Charlie Cooper in the Boys’ Wheelchair Singles championship, and a runner-up finish for Charlie with his countryman Tomas Majetic in Boys’ Wheelchair Doubles (an award I was fortunate enough to present). (Noting: if you haven’t yet seen wheelchair tennis, you are missing out on some of the greatest tennis played by heroes among us.) As we say with our new mission statement (which I had the privilege of helping develop), the USTA is truly “growing tennis to inspire healthier people and communities everywhere.” Very proud to give back through my work on all the NGB’s I’ve been involved with, and particularly the USTA — given its impact on not just sports, but society, and the world. #USTA #USAA #USATT #USOPC #IOC

Looking forward to speaking on the strengths of specialized GP's vs. scale at SuperReturn Asia 2024 (24-27 September at the Marina Bay Sands Convention Centre, Singapore). Preview: IMHO, strong investors with genuine industry expertise bring truly value-added capital, resulting in a real edge over large generalist asset managers. Especially true in closely-held industries like #Sports, #Media & #Entertainment, where Bluestone Equity Partners has been hard at work, strategically deploying our Fund I over the last 18 months. Looking forward to the discussion, and hope you can join us!  #SuperReturn #SRAsia #privateequity

We are pleased to welcome Rhombus to the Bluestone Equity Partners portfolio of high-growth, market-leading companies. Rhombus and its next-gen security & analytics platform (including highly-intelligent cameras, sensors, and cloud-based software) simplifies, enables, and drives 360° protection, detection, and commercial value to virtually any physical space — including #Sports and #Entertainment venues and facilities worldwide.

Official press release on our recent investment in Qloo, the leading Artificial Intelligence (#AI) platform for consumer tastes and preferences — helping businesses make smarter marketing and product decisions by better understanding and predicting consumer choices, while preserving privacy.

Thank you Fortune for the feature on Bluestone Equity Partners and our fourth portfolio company, Qloo — a unique and remarkable SaaS platform turning existing company data sets into immediately impactful consumer insights and actionable opportunities, creating and driving meaningful revenue at scale. Qloo uses a database of more than 575 million touch points, plus a second database of 10 trillion consumer signals, to predict consumer sentiment and taste — all while preserving customer privacy. As they call it, Cultural #AI. Put simply, Qloo’s proprietary data set + applied-AI = added-value to virtually any consumer-facing businesses. Bluestone is excited to help bring this amazing company deeper into #Sports #Media & #Entertainment, an industry especially ripe with such growth opportunities, given the inherent scale of its meaningful touchpoints with passionate consumers and viewers around the world.