Antonio Cacorino, APEX Capital: Venture capital investing in sports and media with elite athletes

[Music] everyone welcome to another edition of vc wisdom podcast today with us we have antonio corrino i was looking at your name and linkedin was saying anton antonio was like i need to remember his name antonio cacorino he's the ceo and founder of epic's capital uh which is a vc fund uh he's in portugal interesting guy we had a nice uh pre-podcast conversation about andrean's uh athleticism

and his firm happens to do somewhat of that uh antonio can you tell us a bit more about apex tell us about what you guys do at uh at this beautiful visi fund uh thanks thanks charles thanks for the invitation uh it's a it's a pleasure to really share what what we are doing you know so so basically we are a sports media entertainment investor okay um

our first vertical you know and really our first uh milestone is really this uh vc investing so so we you know at the core of what we do is definitely a very strong network of elite athletes okay um you know we work with close to 70 athletes across different sports uh really uh motorsports so we have worked with a lot of f1 guys formerly drivers nascar indycar

uh football soccer in this case we're european predominantly european-based for now uh surfing tennis golf but uh but really it's really about getting our athletes uh and pushing forward on the athletic entrepreneur movement so it's a bit about our athletes being active investors in in the deals we do bringing everything and athlete to being to the table from of course forgetting the capital but their brand their

network their industry insights and really their expertise in the space and you know the strategical value that comes with that and this is why we focus in sports and media entertainment uh you know also why we got into vc start is really where you know we believed was a logical first step you know the earlier the involvement in the company the more and the strong the more

strategical value we and our assets combined and have uh so yeah we've been operating on a deal-by-deal basis we really wanted to showcase this uh movement uh and prove you know the that athletes have appetite to invest early stage and risking and getting involved at the same time that companies wanted especially companies in the sports and media space that they wanted athletes you know part of their

capital uh their cap tables and really you know helping them them grow and thrive and this has been going very very well we've done uh 11 deals in a little bit over uh 18 months well we we've uh you know we're like i said working with close society athletes and now we are ready to move into our first so you know the few weeks we're going to get our first fund approved and we're going to be fundraising really to to grow the operation but also to also operationalize better what we do at the end of the day when you work with such high level of athletes timings sometimes this stuff and you know the best deals you have a few days sometimes a few weeks to execute yeah and uh you know if you're in

back to back formula one grampies or you're in champions league uh you know busy times it's hard to get you guys attention and we don't just have their capital we have them their involvement so uh so you know having these guys into a fund but still keeping them active is going to be a challenge but this is what you know it's the logical next step and this

is where we are so do these athletes only invest you know their time energy and brand uh in the fund they don't have to put money down in a promising business they they just have to do uh advertising and being you know they're the face of the company is that the type of deal no no not at all so the invest capital is first fundamental okay um and when we and and actually everything which becomes about them being the face of deal is just a plus we're not commercial agents so we don't do that we are completely against that if it comes has to come organically and it's proactively from the asset side but we are investors our athletes bring capital we have a lot of assets bringing a lot of strategical value into companies

and being silent investors so you know just really connecting you know the people in the space right you know a company a sports tech company that needs you know uh to meet sponsors who need the rights holders to beat clubs or federations who better than an athlete to connect them to right so this is what they do and uh and and yes so the strategical value is

much more than just uh you know being the face or the brand of course that is important they understand that their brand so of course they eventually end up doing that that's something that comes on top and at the end of the day is about you know being an investor like any other investor bringing in capital and strategic relevance but i mean if i have a roger

so let's take an example okay the the cloud shoes um that founded by a swiss guy i think yeah it's called cloud the the startup and they're very nice shoes technology is base basically a rubber under with like holes i'm not sure if you know what i really don't know [Music] former former iron man beast of a guy and uh he had i and that was so surprising to me he had roger federer coming to him like magic and telling him look i want to sponsor your brand you know and if i would have received that phone call i'll be like ah the okay is that serious or is it a prank call um and yeah i mean roger became you know the face of i mean i think he invested too but to me

sometimes to accept you know these uh these faces in the company can literally make or break a company for example floyd mayweather that was um backing a bunch of coins uh i mean it's not the best example but if i had like floyd with a legit uh coin that i would have this would literally change my company a bunch of people would invest in these same with

the board nfts you know with bieber investing and floyd and all of these celebrities so i'm still surprised that they have to put um some money down there is there some cases where they don't have to put any money down or that you know they can get like a free free percentage of the cap table well that is possible but this is something i mean at the

end of the day when you believe you are in that front line of the best deals what athletes get because of who they are is access to the deal so straight away you know uh that is out of question the deals are that good that even you know top names like you're saying let's give the example of floyd even those guys need to put this is the type of deal that we believe we reach you know we've done recently a deal with you know the biggest names in the sport and everyone invested capital and for us but even if it was the case let's call it of a company that would be willing we always push for capital investment because the moment there's real skill in the game even if they associate their brand if

there's no money the mindset is true and we need these guys to have that mindset it's something that we push uh so this sort of uh sponsorship for equity budget for equity it can be a plus so we can negotiate some sort of hybrid solution but it always has to have to invest yeah okay i yeah i mean it's accountability for sure so i understand that aspect

of it um let's uh if we take a couple of um of recent examples of athletes like um you know uh kobe bryant was very good at that he started uh his own fund i believe uh jake paul has started his is fun with um with the founder of a new tropic company that jeffrey wu is his name and this is kind of cool they're fun um the need i guess for athletes is to diversify their assets because they know that they're not going to last forever their their like sports career and their big huge yearly salaries so is is that like the trend that we're seeing and is there a difference between what kind of roster are you looking for are you looking for top top athletes because these guys i guess have like

more money and more power and more you know social capital what type of athletes are are you looking for in your your vc okay so when your first question regarding uh what's the the trend or what's the reason i think it's a bit of everything of course the logical approach or the logical understanding that they need to diversify i need to invest because eventually we'll stop that

is you know obvious and that is but that that is a bit the pitch that you know a private banker wealth manager gives to these guys our approach is completely different than our it's more about just them understanding the power of their brand and leveraging that into investing and you know being having appetites for for you know for being entrepreneurs or investors and just that can be

either part of their life sort of while they're having a career and potentially their post career you know let's call it activity so it's more this type of athlete that we want and this nails don't very well with your second question what type of athlete of course the tier one athletes are interesting because of the bigger brand but at the same time what we really really want

is those guys who have this you know entrepreneurial mindset and who want to get involved you know we don't have you know we work with a lot of uh you know not necessarily the biggest teams we work with the big names as well of course but we work with guys who just have the that up at it and sometimes these are the ideal investors in many ways because they don't have the ego problem of you know grabbing their phone and calling making connections bringing other athletes involved so these guys sometimes are you know more bit more hustlers and you know and become more strategic or more powerful investors but they also balance super well with the other guys which are also active but you know sometimes because they're that big that they're a bit you

know they're used to getting phone calls they're not making phone calls so you know it's it's it's a tough for some kind of barrier to to break even though it comes with time and uh you know we i see great cases of huge names getting involved i mean like in the us right this athletic entrepreneurial movement in the u.s has been happening for a long time we

believe to be leaders in europe and you know and what we've always felt you know our big european guys is like look at the us look at how these guys are doing it you know kobe uh did it um kevin durant does it a lot uh you know uh the impressive example like uh if you ufc is like to me is the most fascinating uh organization in the world and if you look at their athletes and and how they manage their career and if you look at like young up-and-comers like uh um sugar show uh sean um omali he he has someone following him you know 24 7 managing his tick tock and instagram and and all of that and this guy knows this you know he even if he breaks something he'll have something

for tomorrow um either a career and commenting fights you know or his own channel you know and athletes they're diversifying their uh channels like that and younger generations are way more more tech savvy matter of fact so they already know these things i think like older generations have a bit more of a problem managing their their own um digital self one could say no no 100 and

uh and you know and right now one of the why as well it's been a great moment for us is because right now you know rights holders clubs leagues federations they're they're trying you know they're figuring out how they're going to reach gen zed right and you know the end of the day you know sports assets media assets it's all about the consumer the fan and uh

and more and more you know sports fans stopped following necessarily clubs or or they're following athletes you know why is formula one so big now because you know liberty created the netflix show and the netflix show exactly gave lights to the athletes yeah so you know fans started to follow and you know and specifically like this specific driver or this one and then they go into formula

one so the power of the app yeah i think this is a tool that these clubs uh you know and the federation rights holders need to have on their side so they can optimize you know the fan engagement so and it's all about engaging everyone's talking about engagement really really athlete is the centerpiece in sports so it's great moments for us you know because we have the

athletes and the athletes are understanding their power so you know more and more especially on a venture level uh athletes are are becoming super super important investors and i think they still need some support right because you were alluding to recently that uh they go with the pull strategy i was listening to mike tyson's podcast which is a very good podcast by the way and he was

saying another athlete basically that yeah everything comes to him but yeah sure when you're mike tyson yes but um and also even when you're mike tyson you still want to be hustling you know you still want to be creating deals and going after the things that you want and not necessarily have everyone come to you sure if someone comes to you it's easier to convince them right

but you still need to fetch these opportunities and stay savvy with the market which leads to my next question um how business savvy are are most um athletes because they've got a bunch of characteristics that can serve them well right they they know how to work hard they know how to be intense push uh destroy things sometimes and uh they have great energy they're healthy their brain

is usually healthy too except if they've been hit in the head many times but even tyson you know surprisingly um has a lot of wisdom in him so what are are their traits that might be serving them in business and what are the other trades that might not be serving them in business um good question and i think you know look at the way you look at this is the right approach i mean actually anyone who stopped at what they do in in life has to have something different right be it you know of course talent but normally talent especially do these days in sports it's just high enough so these guys on the mindset level all have to have something different mentality focus endurance persistence whatever it is they all have some so it's

just a question of you know breaking the you know uh the the stereotype about around them and really you know being open to policing ego so so it's all about uh you know like everything in your life you have different type of assets the better surrounded they are the better they can really almost you know bring to what they have but normally you know once they they

break the stereotype over they're just not afraid of being you then again these guys are so focused sometimes about what they do that they're just very comfortable there and they get out of comfort you know anything different so that can be a block into many of these guys to understand their true potential as investors and understanding the potential of any business but if the guys that get

around that they are tough you know they're sharp they're to the point they understand you know they're part of the industry we invest in supports and media so they understand you know straight away you know we can sometimes athletes are great you know in due diligence for us so you know there's a sport you know a sports tech company trying to solve a problem in the industry

let's call it you know they can straight away see if that problem truly exists because you can say there's a problem but no does it truly exist they will also understand is there still political barriers that will actually allow the solution to solve this problem you know so they can see that at the moment they they're cleared about this you know barriers they are super smart so

in general they are very very very uh you know guys with different set of capabilities this is where why they are where they are it's just about you know what type of you know personalities they have what type of structure they have around them and sometimes can be very good 100 very insightful so ego who they surround themselves with and the third point which leads to my

next question is sometimes they surround themselves with unhealthy folks and um even without surrounding themselves with unhealthy faults sometimes they're part of unhealthy organizations such as fifa which had their belts with a bunch of things but fifa might sign them on very obstructive contracts you cannot do this you cannot do that you need or even toxic brands you know like hey if you're doing this then you

need to feature us and so forth you get into hurdles sometimes with athletes that have uh restrictive contracts and they cannot do with you and that makes you like kind of angry and uh unproductive in the process yeah you know these guys are all it's normal they're surrounded with sponsorships you know so then they're teams there's normal blocks you know especially they're going to be associating themselves

publicly with and what happens is many ways they think it's a blog and we tell them no because you being strategical doesn't mean like putting your face you can be strategical you can be a silent investor you can be opening doors of course just the initial restriction that you cannot be you know publicly associated with this company of course it gives them some sort of fear and

we've had it you know last normal it's part of who they are but uh so so sometimes it's a vlog sometimes we find a way around it by themselves investors sometimes you know uh you know they understand that actually those you know if you're a sponsor and you're going to sponsor you know your rent people just forcing a you know a driver a football player or whatever

if they're going to ask you can i do this she's going to say no because you know i prefer not to risk if i if you're asking me i'll tell you not to do but at the end of the day if you go down to the legal contracts and if you understand really the implications there's solutions sometimes guys some athletes don't want to go into the the problems or just uh you know prefer not to dig deeper it once we dig deeper we always find a solution so yes we've encountered some uh some blocks along the way but in general uh the movement is is stronger and uh these blocks are becoming less and less and like in the u.s one thing is investing your business another thing is you know your sports career and

your sponsorship there's an obvious question of this clash if my team is sponsored by you know a big uh you know uh energy drink i can also invest in the competition while i'm the start that's an obvious one we don't even but but yeah that that's that's it you have a meeting coming up right yeah i have a meeting uh coming up but uh you know i would love to continue the conversation you know sure let's do round two man we need to speak about webtree and uh all of these things which are also under my umbrella so uh just in case we do that uh round two uh a bit later where can people find out more about you so right now we you know of course our website our linkedin page uh there's

some interesting news around there there's going to be some great uh things coming out about some specific deals about us but you know right now the obvious one is you know our website www apex forward slash cp.com or just our linkedin apex capital uh and yeah all right well that was uh antonio cacorino you can find it under that name on linkedin antonio thank you so much

uh very interesting inside very much very cool business you have let's keep touch buddy thanks man and a nice chat [Music] you