“The idea of wealth preservation for athletes is not a new one – but only a few of them are professional investor”
How do you remember the early days of the company?
APEX Capital was founded almost two years ago. The co-founders are two brothers, Pedro Felix da Costa and Antonio Felix da Costa, Mitch Evans and myself. Many of us were sportsmen or sports fans, so it was easy to get our feet wet in the sports world in the beginning, and we had a great network right away. Also, before we started the company, we talked to a lot of athletes. I have a financial business background, so we mostly talked about their finances and investments. I very quickly realised that the idea of wealth preservation for athletes is not a new one, so a lot of athletes have structure that allows them to keep their money and keep it in a good place so that when they finish their career. So, this was nothing new, but what we noticed – and particularly in Europe – was that few athletes were involved in investing and understood how to be successful and efficient at it. We saw this as an opportunity to start connecting athletes with the private market, especially with investments, and encourage them to become investors or entrepreneurs. Also, we quickly realised that they could add even more value in sports media and entertainment, as their network is quite strong in the industry, so they could be very good investors in terms of business development. So in essence, APEX is an investment company. Any athlete who wants to become an investor can work with us. Your job as an investor is to really differentiate yourself and present a super strong value proposition, and that’s what we do with our athletes.
Could you summarise how much resources you invest in the education of athletes when you start working with them?
I wouldn’t say we have a structured education process, we are very flexible in this area. Education can take many different forms, it depends on the athletes. We have athletes who have some experience in this business, of course, and have good structures around them which also help them to feel comfortable with us. And then we have athletes who are just getting to understand for the first time the dynamics of venture investing, how they have to do it, how they can liquidate the money, how they pay dividends, etc. In their case, it is done by us showing them the details of the deal, but at the same time giving them complete flexibility, and they only enter a deal when they feel comfortable with it. This education process is hands-on, it really works when they see the business, ask questions, meet us, the founders, and talk to other athletes. One of our greatest strengths is the cross section of the athlete community where we can talk to each other and share our experiences. Our founders include two athletes, but now we have another six athletes who were our clients but have now become partners in the business. This community allows them to educate themselves through experience, whether it is a good or a bad experience. So overall, there’s not a structured education process, it’s all about trust, because they come to a place where they can ask all their questions, right up to the moment they feel comfortable and start investing.
When it comes to investing in startups and other innovations, how does this process work at APEX?
We realized quite early that we have a solid athlete base that makes APEX Capital a very strong brand. The moment we have a brand, and we are identified as an investor on the market, most opportunities come to us. We have a massive inbound relationship, and we are also very focused on investing heavily in our team. We are also ready to act as an investment fund, our team is still growing and expanding to 12 people by the end of next month. So we have a very professional process from the moment a pitch deck comes to us to the moment we decide to invest. Initially, it was important to feel comfortable in doing the right deals, but it was also important to scale the deal and even to get the most out of what we were doing. We needed to move to a basic structure and we will do that in the next two months when we set up our first fund. This will be the first time we let non-athlete capital in. The fund strategy is to invest in the best, most active athletes in different sports and then allow other investors, family businesses or asset managers who have already shown interest to invest with us through the fund.
How many pitch decks have you seen in the nearly two years since you founded the company?
Over a thousand for sure. Fortunately, I am seeing fewer and fewer now, but not the team, just me, because we have successfully grown the company. Almost a year ago, we were joined with Koen Bosma, who heads up our Venture Capital group, which is now our main investment focus, and we have built a super-strong team around him. The team is very focused on analysing the deals that come into us, screening them, trying to understand what makes more sense for us and our athletes. We have partnerships with a lot of large investors, but sometimes we also bring in other co-investors in deals. Sometimes these investors, these funds, will present the deals and they bring us in as industry experts to justify whether it makes sense for the sport or the media.
“Before every investment, at first, we need to understand the founder”
Sports technology as an industry is growing at a tremendous rate. What are the key elements you look for in a project, in a company, when you decide to invest in that company?
The first thing you do after you get past the initial filters is to look at what is the added value of the business? How are you trying to improve it? Do we like it? We need to understand the founder, we need to understand the founder’s commitment and how well they understand the industry. The other party is also very important to us. We might be experts in the industry, but it might be about a different kind of technology solution that is not our expertise. So, it is very important for us that we already have an investor who validates the technology. For us, scalability is hugely important, so anything that is easily scalable, we like. For example, we tend to avoid hardware because we do not think it is that easy to scale and monetise because we invest at an early stage, so we prefer to see the scalability element. We also like companies that can sell globally so that there are no problems scaling in other countries and no political barriers in other countries. We like companies where we see not only the product and the idea, but also the founder as unique and special.
How many companies are currently in your portfolio and in which industries?
We currently have 13 companies in our portfolio, 11 or 12 of them in sports media, and we have some blockchain investments. We have an investment in the Portuguese startup RealFevr, which is basically an NFT-based video marketplace. RealFevr and Beach Soccer Worldwide have recently launched the first digital beach soccer collectibles worldwide, featuring iconic moments from the biggest stars in the sport. An example of blockchain-based investment is Exclusible, a premium NFT marketplace for luxury digital collectibles from the Web3 world. They are NFT partners for luxury brands, also in the metaverse. We recently announced our investment in TMRW Sports, the company behind Golf Leagues, a project of two world star golfers, Tiger Woods and Rory Mcllroy, which is the intersection of golf technology and a complete media product to bring future generations into both.
There are also a few B2B sports, such as Spalk, which has a software that helps broadcasters, sports leagues and teams offer multiple commentary options for their live sports broadcasts to enable a customised viewer experience and increase their audience, all while reducing broadcast production costs. So, our portfolio is quite diversified within sport as well, but we have associated a lot of value in all of these deals from the outset, and that’s what we want to continue to do in the future. Our funding is focused on sports technology, media technology and entertainment.
“The Portugal tech ecosystem is growing – New founders, new entrepreneurs, new investors will settle here”
How do you see the future and feasibility of NFT and blockchain-based sports innovation technology?
We believe in them for the long term. The sports industry is a huge platform for Web3 because it’s a powerful tool to really democratise the way fans engage with sport, especially among the younger generation. It allows everything to be accessed from everywhere to bring fans closer to the club and the players, because that’s what a true fan wants. We believe that Web3 will be super-powerful in the sport and can generate huge reach when you enter the NFT space. It’s a long-term solution and a better way for fans to connect with athletes, clubs and leagues. This is usually what clubs have lost, but this is how they will get it back. Engaging with athletes is a great way to connect fans to the sports they love, the sports they play, and it allows those businesses to be sustainable at the end of the day, which is what everyone needs.
Your headquarters are in Portugal. How do you see the ecosystem in Portugal and Lisbon around sports technology and the sports industry as a business?
Our office is here, but we have no boundaries, our business is completely global. But overall Lisbon and Portugal are definitely growing, a lot of startups are moving here, so it is slowly becoming a hub for technology and startups. A lot of people are working here, there are bigger blockchain offices, which will of course lead to the development of sports technology. New founders, new entrepreneurs, new investors will settle here. So, the ecosystem in general, in terms of venture capital, is growing and sports tech can only benefit from that.
Where do you see your company in three or four years’ time in terms of business development?
We are currently focusing on our next big step, which is to set up and launch our first venture fund. APEX will hopefully become a large European or global sports media group. So once the venture fund is up and running, we will start looking into other investment strategies. We are always approached with sports clubs, opportunities, Formula 1 teams, which sounds very interesting and exciting, I think we can get there. So, I think in the long term we will really grow as a sports and media group, but we have to take it step by step. Entrepreneurship is what we are really good at and what we have been doing for the last year and a half. We need to make sure we have the best investors and I think we are getting close to that. The athletes that we are bringing on board are certainly going to be some of the best in the world. But of course, we are also moving towards other investment strategies.
What is your personal goal for your career in the next three to four years?
My goal is to continue to lead APEX and my dream is to achieve the path we have set. Hopefully, in a few years we will see that all of our athletes are active investors and that this has become a part of their lives after their careers. So, in the future, all athletes will know when they become athletes that while they are among the bests, they can also create a brand around themselves and start investing, which can have an impact on their life after their career. This would be my personal mission at APEX.