Sports Technology Company Teamworks Closes $65 Million Series E Round, Looks To Integrate Recent Acquisitions

Zach Maurides was an offensive lineman on Duke’s football team in 2005 when he conceived of a company, Teamworks, that would become his life’s work. Back then, Maurides noticed the Blue Devils employed strength coaches, trainers, dietitians, tutors, sports scientists and numerous other highly trained and skilled professionals working to help athletes succeed on and off the field.

Still, it was hard for those people to communicate and coordinate schedules, so Maurides and his startup company built a software program to get everyone aligned in a more efficient and effective manner. Until 2019, save for one small acquisition, Teamworks grew organically. But over the past four years, Teamworks’ ambition has grown as it has made several acquisitions, raised money to fuel its vision and expanded its client base to hundreds of professional, college and Olympics sports teams in about 20 countries as well as the military and first responders.

Late last month, Teamworks closed a $65 million Series E round, its largest to date. That brought its total funding to $165 million and followed a $50 million Series D round that the company announced in June 2022.

Maurides, who is Teamworks’ chief executive, would not disclose the company’s valuation after the Series E round, which was led by Dragoneer Investment Group, a San Francisco company that invests in technology companies. But Maurides noted the valuation was about twice as much as following the Series D round, which was led by Delta-V Capital, a Boulder, Colo., company focusing on software investments.

Maurides said Teamworks closed the Series E round in fewer than 90 days, which is a rarity at a time when venture capital firms and other investors are spending more time evaluating opportunities.

“We’re well aware how difficult the current fundraising environment is for a lot of folks,” Maurides said. “I think what made the difference for us was, number one, we’re the clear market leader in our industry. Number two, we’re still growing really fast. And then number three, we’re highly capital efficient. I think if you are those three things, I don’t think this is a difficult market to raise in right now.”

He added: “We received very favorable terms that were mirroring those of our previous round, so we were very happy with the outcome.”

Teamworks used some of the latest funding to acquire ARMS Software, a company that works with more than 400 college athletic departments primarily on NCAA compliance, recruiting management and camp operations.

The deal comes a few months after Teamworks announced it had acquired Smartabase, Retain, NextPlay and Grafted in separate transactions. Smartabase is intended for sports scientists to identify and develop talent, while Retain used by colleges to track their academic advisors and support services. Grafted and NextPlay, meanwhile, are early-stage companies focused on helping athletes transition to their lives after graduation or their playing careers end.

Teamworks made its first major acquisition in October 2019, buying INFLCR, a company that at the time allowed athletes to post photos of themselves playing in games on their social media feeds. INFLCR has since expanded to become a leading name, image and likeness (NIL) platform, helping more than 70,000 athletes to profit via NIL deals and more than 3,500 college teams to monitor those deals to make sure they’re in compliance with rules.

In October 2021, Teamworks acquired Notemeal, a startup focused on sports nutrition. Dietitians use Notemeal’s app to build meal plans for athletes, track their nutrition and allow them to order food at organizations’ cafeterias. And in October 2022, Teamworks acquired Whistle Recruiting and RecruitSuite, software companies focused on college recruiting.

“We’ve tried to identify the teams in this industry that we think are doing the best work in each category,” Maurides said. “We understood that to construct all the technology that’s going to be needed to really kind of revitalize this industry, to digitize this industry, is a pretty tall order. The best way to get to an end state of fully digitizing this industry is to try and recruit really excellent teams, really excellent companies, that are focused on all the different areas that we think need to be addressed.”

Most of the companies Teamworks has acquired have retained their branding and names. Teamworks sells the products as a complete package, a bundle of a few of the offerings or a la carte.

While most of the company’s customers are sports organizations and leagues, Teamworks is getting into other industries, including the military and first responders.

“What they all have in common is they are all industries that are built around human assets, really unique and expensive human assets,” Maurides said. “They’re all industries that really make a massive investment into health, wellness and performance.”

Over the past year, Teamworks has been active building out its products via acquisitions, but Maurides does not expect to do any more deals in the next few months.

“I think we’re gonna take some time to digest, to make sure we integrate the teams and the products well over the next few quarters,” Maurides said. “We certainly have kind of our list of folks that we think are exceptional that we’re active in recruiting, but I would say certainly, for the near future. I think we’re going to just focus digesting (the acquired companies).”