56. Deepen Parikh, Partner at Courtside Ventures

Today, I’m joined by Deepen Parikh, a partner at Courtside
Ventures. 


 


Courtside is an early-stage venture firm focused on fitness and
wellness, sports and media, and gaming. 


 


In this episode, Deepen tells us about Courtside’s new $75M fund,
the firm’s thesis as it related to fitness: including the
reinvented gym, human performance, community, and personalized
data. And we get into how he thinks about the team, business
model, and market when evaluating an investment
opportunity. 


 


A quick announcement that we touch on this in the episode:
Anthony & I are excited to be partnering with Courtside —
where we’ll be working as advisors to the firm. So if you’re
building a company in health, fitness, wellness, or sports
categories, we’d love to hear from you. Send us an email:
insider@fitt.co


 


More from Deepen



Deepen Parikh is a Partner at Courtside Ventures, a leading
VC fund focused on early-stage companies across sports/digital
media, fitness/wellness and gaming. Since launching Courtside
Ventures in 2016, they've invested in 45+ companies,
including Freeletics, Future.fit, Gainful, Silofit,
Paceline, The Athletic, StockX, The Drone Racing League, Religion
of Sports, Beam (acq by Microsoft), 100 Thieves, RecoverX, among
several others.


 


He leads the funds investment focus across fitness, and wellness
along with select investment in sports and digital media. 


 


Sitting at the intersection of the rapidly growing
entrepreneurial ecosystem and the broader sports technology
industry, he was recognized as a 2018 Sports Business Journal
Forty Under 40 recipient.


 


Previously, Deepen was a Partner at Interplay Ventures, an
early-stage technology incubator and investor, where he was part
of launching/building 15+ companies and investing in another 6
companies.


 


Deepen started his career as an Associate at UBS Financial
Services and earned his BA in Economics from the University of
Maryland, College Park. He currently resides in New York City
with his wife, Rakhi (who works at Major League Soccer) and his
daughter Prem.


 


More on Courtside 


 


Courtside Ventures is a leading early-stage VC fund, backed
by several professional sports team owners, public media
companies, global family offices and strategic individuals and
athletes. They focus on investing across sports/digital
media, fitness/wellness and gaming. 


 


Across Fund I and Fund II (which they are in the process of
closing), they've invested in 45+ companies, including The
Athletic, StockX, The Drone Racing League, Religion of Sports,
Beam (acq by Microsoft), Rebel (acq by Salesforce), Freeletics,
100 Thieves, Players Lounge, RecoverX, Future.fit, Gainful,
Silofit, Paceline, among several others. 


 


More from Fitt Insider 


 


Fitt Insider is a weekly newsletter and podcast about the
business of fitness and wellness. 


 


From product launches and funding news to game-changing
innovation, Fitt Insider provides listeners with insights and
analysis on this ever-evolving industry. 


 


Join your peers and colleagues from companies like Equinox,
Apple, Peloton, Goldman Sachs, Nike, and ClassPass by
subscribing.  



Website:  http://insider.fitt.co