Exclusive: DealShare co-founder’s new startup Sports For Life raises seed round

Sourjyendu Medda, co-founder of social commerce platform DealShare, has ventured into the sportstech space with his new startup, Sports For Life, which aims to invest in and support the sports ecosystem in India, focusing on providing athletes with the necessary resources to excel.

While Sports For Life has yet to announce its official launch, the Bengaluru-based startup has raised seed funding from individual investors and early-stage venture capital firm Roots Ventures.

The board of Sports For Life’s parent company, Jambavan Academy, has passed a special resolution to issue 3,000 Seed CCPS to raise Rs 9.5 crore, according to its regulatory filings accessed by Entrackr.

Roots Ventures invested Rs 5 crore, while ML Tondon and Sons HUF and Blume Ventures pumped in Rs 3 crore and Rs 1 crore, respectively. The rest of the amount was poured in by Kunal Shah’s QED Innovation and Himanshu Arora. According to TheKredible, the company is valued at Rs 36.65 crore ($4.3 million) following this seed round.

Following the fresh funding, Roots Ventures has become the largest external stakeholder with a 12.08% stake, followed by ML Tandon HUF and Blume Ventures. Co-founders Sourjyendu Medda and Armaan Tandon collectively hold 66.83% of the company.

See TheKredible for the detailed shareholding pattern.

According to the firm’s website, Sports For Life is investing in sports academies across India, with the goal of creating a sports ecosystem that elevates the overall standard of sports in the country. 

Medda, who was one of the co-founders and a board member of DealShare before leaving in January, has also roped in Armaan Tandon, a former data and operations analyst at Cartesian, as a co-founder of Sports For Life.

In 2024, several prominent startup founders have launched new ventures, many of which have already secured initial funding. Notable launches include ZeroPe by BharatPe co-founder Ashneer Grover, OppDoor by Flipkart co-founder Binny Bansal, Unikon by Bella Vita founder Aakash Anand, Gabit by Zomato co-founder Gaurav Gupta, Callmatic by Mitron TV co-founder Shivank Agarwal, and Lyskraft and Nurix AI by Cult.fit co-founder Mukesh Bansal.