Courtside Ventures

Vasu Kulkarni and Deepen Parikh co-founded Courtside in 2016 and remain its signing partners on every fund. Kulkarni founded Krossover, a sports analytics company acquired by Stack Sports in 2017, studied engineering at the University of Pennsylvania, and grades deals against a twenty-criterion framework. Parikh was a partner at Interplay Ventures, spent three years at UBS and founded a CRM company serving professional and college sports teams; he led the firm's investment in Beam, acquired by Microsoft, and sat on The Athletic's board from first check through its New York Times acquisition. Kai Bond, who appears in SEC filings under the name Kagiso Bond, joined as a partner and became a manager of the general partner from Fund III; he sold Pixie to Samsung, ran Samsung NEXT's global accelerator and led Comcast Ventures' $20 million Catalyst Fund. Oliver Ressler is venture partner and Cort Post is principal.

Courtside launched in January 2016 with a $35 million first fund, announced as a strategic partnership with Bruin Sports Capital and disclosed in a WPP plc filing with the SEC. Dan Gilbert, majority owner of the Cleveland Cavaliers and founder of Rock Ventures and Quicken Loans, anchored the fund; WPP was the other named backer, and Bruin founder George Pyne took the non-executive chairmanship. Fund II filed in October 2019 at a $100 million target and refiled in November 2020 at $75 million. Fund III registered in November 2021 at $100 million and closed at that figure in January 2023, backed by Shaquille O'Neal, Larry Fitzgerald, David Blitzer and a group of NBA and Premier League team owners. A $50 million opportunity fund followed in December 2021, and Fund IV filed in June 2024 against a $100 million target. The firm reports more than 80 active investments, over $9 billion in portfolio enterprise value and nine acquisitions or public listings.