NEW YORK: Major League Cricket (MLC), promoted by Times Group-led American Cricket Enterprises (ACE), USA Cricket’s commercial rights partner, has announced an initial close of a $44 million Series A and A1 fundraising round.
Satya Nadella, CEO of Microsoft and a part-owner of the Seattle Sounders franchise in Major League Soccer, has been announced as a lead investor in the fundraise for MLC, the six-team franchise T20 competition that is targeting a 2023 launch.
It bears noting that Nadella is one among a high profile group of founder investors that MLC had unveiled in December 2020.
With an additional commitment of $76 million in further fundraising over the next 12 months in place, MLC plans to deploy more than $120 million to launch the country’s first-ever professional Twenty20 cricket league.
Investor groups for the Series A and A1 Fundraising Round, which includes MLC’s seed funding round, were led by:
Nadella and Soma Somasegar (managing director, Madrona Venture Group)
Anand Rajaraman and Venky Harinarayan (founding partners at Milliways Ventures and Rocketship VC)
Sanjay Govil (founder and chairman of Infinite Computer Solutions and CEO, Zyter)
Anurag Jain (managing partner of Perot Jain, LP, chairman of Access Healthcare) and Ross Perot Jr. (chairman, The Perot Group)
Tanweer Ahmed (CEO, PAK Foods, CEO, OUR Energy and owner of Prairie View Cricket Complex)
The Baheti family (owners of YASH Technologies)
Additional participating investors in this round, along with the full list of MLC’s original seed investors, are listed below.
“The significant funding committed by an outstanding group of investors will allow Major League Cricket to build first-class facilities and accelerate the sport’s development across the country, bringing world-class professional cricket to the world’s largest sports market,” said Sameer Mehta and Vijay Srinivasan, co-founders, Major League Cricket (the duo are also co-founders of Willow TV, which was bought over by Times Internet in 2016). “This investor group comprises leading business executives and successful tech entrepreneurs who have led some of the world’s most prominent companies. They bring tremendous experience and expertise in support of MLC’s plans to launch a transformative Twenty20 league and establish America as one of the world’s leading homes for international cricket events.”
According to the press release issued by MLC on Wednesday, the $120 million investment into MLC will primarily be dedicated to building premier cricket-specific stadia and training centers.
ADDITIONAL SERIES A ROUND INVESTORS
Troy Detrick – founder of Canyon Oak Ventures
Mihir Worah – former chief investment officer, PIMCO
Preetish Nijhawan – co-founder, Akamai and co-founder and GP of Cervin Ventures
Manish Parikh – co-founder and CEO, Icon Systems Inc
Vikram Ramani – CTO Banking, FIS Global
Sankar Kaliaperumal – managing director, Accenture
Dhigha Sekaran – director at Meta and former Microsoft executive
Shantanu Narayen – chairman and CEO, Adobe
Singh Capital Partners – Family office
Stuart Giles, co-founder, ICON Group
Samir Bodas – co-founder and CEO, ICertis
Sanjay Parthasarathy – chief product officer, Avalara. former Microsoft executive
To view seed round investors and original announcement, click here…
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