A sports startup shares the key pitch deck slides that helped raise the first $7 million for its athlete streaming and e-commerce platform

• Sports startup Millions shares the key pitch deck slides that helped raise its first $7 million.
• Athletes, including former NBA player Lamar Odom and former NFL player Terrell Owens, use the platform.
• The pitch deck shows how Millions can help athletes monetize their name, image, and likeness.

Social-commerce platform Millions is trying to change how athletes make money from their names, images, and likenesses, from the professional to the collegiate level.

The startup closed about three years ago its first 10 million Canadian dollars ($7 million) in funding, and it shared with Business Insider the pitch deck it used to raise the round.

The idea for Millions came about during the pandemic when former boxing-gym owner Matt Whitteker heard from some boxers who were trying to sell their own merch online. He thought an e-commerce platform could help them.

"We decided… we can help our friends and build just a small e-commerce platform for boxers," Matt Whitteker, CEO and cofounder of Millions, told BI.

Whitteker then observed during the development of Millions the rise in UFC watch parties and personalities like video podcaster Joe Rogan. Inspired by this, the company added streaming and personalized-video components to its platform.

Athletes and event promoters can host livestreams and watch parties, and sell personalized videos, in addition to selling merch on the platform.

"Millions is an e-commerce and streaming platform built for athletes to connect with their fans," said Whitteker. "As part of the streaming platform, we have hundreds of events that use Millions every month to host their pay-per-view… so the elevator pitch, e-commerce and streaming for athletes and sports."

Millions is trying to bring the kinds of services offered by platforms like the personalized-video company Cameo, livestreaming platform Twitch, and e-commerce company Shopify under one roof for athletes.

"Rather than use four disparate platforms, you could use Millions as your one-stop shop if you're an athlete or a sports team or a gym or an event promoter," he said.

A month after its launch in April 2021, Millions brought about 300 combat-sports athletes to its platform. The company said the platform now has over 10,000 athlete profiles and is used by MMA fighters such as Valentina Shevchenko and Bryce Mitchell, as well as UFC announcer Bruce Buffer, who joined Millions as a cofounder "after seeing a pre-launch demo of the product," the company said.

It kickstarted the business by raising a seed funding round in September 2021, which was led by the venture firm Volition Capital and included some angel investors. The company said it hasn't needed to raise outside capital again since.

Whitteker shared key slides from the pitch deck Millions used to raise the early funding. The company has updated the slides since the raise and removed some financial information, such as revenue and sales targets, growth year over year, and the number of profiles created.

Whitteker said one of the key selling points for investors was the platform's "network effects."

"More athletes bring more fans, more athletes and more fans create more content," he said, adding, "There are multiple revenue streams and a massive global growing team."

Here are 29 key pitch-deck slides Millions used to raise its $7 million seed round:

Introducing Millions

An overview of the Millions ecosystem

This slide gives an overview of Millions' role in the sports ecosystem, including working with athletes, sports agents, content platforms, and brands.

On the right, Millions highlights brand partners like Netflix and Pepsi, and that its streaming service connects to platforms like Instagram and YouTube Live, so if an athlete goes live on Millions, they can also go live across social media.

"When you go live on Millions, you can also connect any of your other social accounts and really max out your impressions," he said.

Millions says athletes across sports use its platform

The company said athletes, including former Los Angeles Laker Lamar Odom and former NFL player Terrell Owens, use its e-commerce platform.

He said all athletes want more brand deals and to monetize their name, image, and likeness. Moreover, athletes want to capitalize on these opportunities while playing in their sport.

"One of the exciting items for investors when we were raising money is an athlete in Reykjavik, Iceland, has the same challenges as an athlete in Indonesia, in the US, and globally," Whitteker said.

College athletes and micro influencers also use Millions

Millions works with up-and-coming athletes, such as NCAA soccer player Zivana Labovic, NCAA basketball player Anthony Walker, and Baltimore Ravens football player Geno Stone.

"When you look at athletes like Anthony or Gino or Vivana, they don't have huge followings, but they are really popular and they do get to take advantage of brand deals," Whitteker said.

Valentina Shevchenko is one of the biggest stars using Millions

The company named a few of the biggest athletes using the platform, including MMA fighter Shevchenko, Tampa Rays baseball player Randy Arozarena, and Minnesota Vikings quarterback Dalvin Cook.

"These athletes are active, so they're either streaming, they're either selling merchandise or memorabilia, but they're kind of what we would call 'product activated,' not just profile activated," Whitteker said.

The biggest sports personalities on Millions

The company said Millions also caters to sports personalities. For instance, Buffer, the UFC announcer, and NFL running back coach Amanda Ruller use the platform.

Athletes on Millions have 'massive' reach

Millions told BI its platform can now reach over 500 million sports fans, up from over 200 million at the time of the pitch.

"When you aggregate the following of all the athletes on the platform, and given the fact that we're connected to all their socials, we can reach an audience through the talent of over 200 million sports fans, but it's actually higher than that now," Whitteker said.

The company touts its 5,000+ live athletes and sports personalities

Whitteker said over 5,000 athletes and sports personalities use Millions and leverage it to build their brand.

"You can see some of the athletes really loving being on Millions, rocking their Millions merchandise and also rocking their own merchandise and proud to kind of promote their own line," he said.

What Millions offers marketers

Millions helps connect brands and athletes for partnerships and other deals. Whitteker said marketers want a social-commerce platform that can host appearances, podcasts, press conferences, personalized videos, and campaigns.

"When you think of the marketing products that we offer people, we offer the brands the opportunity to sponsor individual athletes to create content for them," he said. "We offer the opportunity for brands to book individual specific athletes."

Athletes can create their own channels on Millions

The company showed examples of athletes who have created channels, podcasts, and shows on Millions, such as "Kicking it with Katniss" by MMA fighter Kaylin Neil and "Rolling with the Punches" by Natalie Loureda.

Whitteker told BI the company offers athletes design support for their content as well.

Athletes can record live podcasts on Millions, too

The company said that when athletes or sports personalities livestream podcasts on Millions, that content can be shared on all their connected social-media accounts. Once the podcast is over, athletes can edit and cut the podcast into short-form content.

Brands can also get involved in Millions' podcasts and other content

The company highlights sponsorship opportunities in its content, such as product placement and integrations, script reads by podcast hosts, and audio commercial inserts.

Millions says it's partnered with over 100 social communities

The company said it has built, acquired, and partnered with over 100 social communities where it can share brand-sponsored content with sports fans.

Millions describes how its maximizes impressions

"We maximize through live impressions, then we produce that long-form content into clips and short-form content, and then it gets built into commercials, traffic, and impressions through distributing that content," Whitteker said, describing the slide.

The platform has a watch party feature

The company said sports fans could tune in to watch parties of their favorite sports, athletes, or personalities on Millions for free.

Watch parties on Millions

Millions said its watch parties are "interactive," "highly engaged," and "event-driven."

Millions also has a press release product

The company organizes press conferences and releases featuring athletes to help its brand and event partners promote upcoming announcements.

"We've sold hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of press conferences this year, and it's just a really cool spin on a traditional press release on PR Newswire," said Whitteker.

The company says PR is changing

Millions said there's a big opportunity to disrupt PR since most journalists don't source stories from traditional press releases.

It describes PR in 2024

The company highlighted several ways PR is evolving in 2024, including that journalists generate story ideas from trending topics on social media.

How Millions hosts press conferences

Whitteker gave an example of how press conferences work on Millions.

For instance, a whiskey brand could select an athlete from Millions' platform that resonates with their target market, such as a golfer for a brand that wants to reach a more affluent customer base. The athlete then hosts or participates in a press conference on Millions. The press conference is livestreamed on connected social-media platforms. And the recording can be repurposed for short videos to be distributed across Millions and the brand's and the athlete's accounts, as well as to journalists.

Athletes can also create UGC and sponsored content on Millions

The company showed examples of user-generated content and social collabs featuring athletes on Millions.

Brands can be matched on athletes to collaborate with

This slide describes how brands can set a budget and target demographic for their campaigns, which athletes can then apply for, or "pre-approve" athletes it wants to work with to commission content from them.

It offers audience segmentation features

The slide said Millions' audience-segmentation tool, SmartMatch, allows brands to target an athlete's fanbase based on gender, age, sport, geography, and affinity.

Joe Montana teamed up with Gold Bar Whiskey on the platform

The company said Gold Bar Whiskey booked former NFL quarterback Joe Montana for a multi-year activation on the platform.

The campaign included a press conference, watch parties, and other content

The bottle-launch campaign led to over $6 million in orders

It also drove 25,000 viewers for the livestreamed press conference and 4 million impressions from streams, press, and social, among other highlights, according to the slide.

Gold Bar also booked other collabs through Millions

The company shared more examples of brand deals between Gold Bar and MMA athletes on Millions.

"They just literally sent an offer out to a hundred MMA athletes and you can see some of the content," Whitteker said.

Brands like Body Armour and Dunkin' Donuts have also run UGC campaigns on the platform

The end

The pitch deck closes with contact information for Brandon Austin, the CMO of Millions.

Read the original article on Business Insider