⭐Upside VC Profile: Scrum Ventures & Chat with Mike Proman, Partner.

Julien Blin

Nov 20, 2025

Here is below the logos of some of the Scrum Ventures’ portfolio startups:

Source: Scrum Ventures

Scrum Ventures is an early-stage venture capital firm with offices in San Francisco and Tokyo. Founded by Tak Miyata, it operates at the intersection of Silicon Valley innovation and Japanese corporate networks, helping founders connect with global customers, strategic partners, and capital. Through its “thematic” investing model, Scrum targets emerging trends in technology and culture, and supports founders not just with money, but with hands-on help in hiring, fundraising, and business operations.

In late 2024, Scrum Ventures made a major move by closing its first vertical fund — the $68 million Scrum Sports & Entertainment Fund I — aimed squarely at startups transforming sports, media, and lifestyle.With this fund, Scrum is investing in startups such as Bandit Running, Fever, Ozlo Sleep, TMRW Sports, Volo Sports, Campus Ink, and GlobalComix.The firm believes that as sports and entertainment increasingly overlap with lifestyle and culture, technology-driven companies can unlock powerful new business models.

This week, we interviewed Mike Proman, partner at Scrum Ventures. During the interview with Mike, we discussed his career journey from sports marketing roles at Coca-Cola and the NBA to founding a startup, exiting, and eventually moving into venture capital, where diverse experience and industry relationships shaped his investment approach. He explained that while AI currently dominates sports tech investing, many companies lack defensibility unless they own strong IP, unique data, or create “tribal tech” that brings people together at scale, as sports naturally does.

Mike also outlined Scrum Ventures’ philosophy that truly venture-backable companies must be able to scale beyond teams and leagues, since the sports market alone rarely supports 10–20x outcomes, and highlighted companies like Bandit and Negoti as examples. He closed by emphasizing that early-stage investing is largely qualitative, relationships matter more than anything, and experience across different sides of the industry helps investors better navigate reality — and recognize when something isn’t likely to work.

You can watch below the full video interview with Mike:

Here are some of the best quotes of our interview with Mike:

1. Your Journey & Background

“If you told me 23 years ago when I started my career that this is where I’d be now, I’d probably tell you you’re bullshitting me. I never really felt that this was going to be a career path, but I think the role of venture has changed dramatically in the last 20 plus years.”
“When I started my career with Coca-Cola, working in their global sports marketing team on the Olympics and FIFA, it exposed me to a lot of opportunities within the sector. It’s a very small, somewhat incestuous industry and relationships matter, and those relationships enabled me to do some pretty amazing things.”
“It allowed me to work with the NBA, helping build out their international business in the mid-2000s. I then leveraged that experience into my own startup in the late 2000s and ultimately to an acquisition in 2011, and then channeled that momentum into the venture world.”
“There are gaps in the market, and having diverse experience and skill sets has served me pretty well.”

2. The State of Sports Tech Investing

“AI’s prominence is real. I don’t think it’s going away. It will continue to evolve. But like a lot of very nascent industries, it’s kind of Darwinism at its best — some companies will wither away and some will get bigger, stronger, faster and become the next unicorns.”
“There is a lot of noise. Venture funding broadly, not just in sports, is being dominated by AI right now. I don’t disagree with peers deploying into AI — but the saturation is pretty pronounced.”
“Three areas stand out to us right now. First, companies with strong IP — AI will disrupt a lot of things, but if you have strong IP, that is real defensibility. Second, companies that own unique data sets. AI can amplify and enhance what you can do with that data, but if you own it, you’re truly differentiated.”
“The third is what I call ‘tribal tech’ — technologies that bring people together at scale. Sports is the best living and breathing example of tribalism. We could be complete strangers, but if we walk into a stadium wearing the same colors, for three hours we’re on the same tribe.”

3. AI’s Growing Role in Sports & Performance

“AI will disrupt a lot, but if you have strong IP, I think that’s a very strong piece of defensibility.”
“If you own data that’s unique, AI will be able to extend, amplify, and enhance what you can do with that data. But without proprietary data or IP, many AI companies don’t have anything that prevents others from copying them.”
“What we’re seeing is a large amount of funding going into AI-related technology, but a lot of it sounds the same. The key question we ask is: what do you actually own? What is your edge? What makes you defensible five years from now?”
“We’re not contrarians for the sake of being different, but we are disciplined in looking for areas where AI is not just a wrapper around existing capabilities — but where it’s enabling value that didn’t exist before.”

4. Favorite Investments & Lessons Learned

“There are so many companies I could talk about — it’s like trying not to rank your kids. But the ones that embody data sets, IP, and tribal connection are often my favorites.”

On Bandit

“Bandit is essentially currency now within the running community. Three or four years ago, very few people even knew the brand existed, and today they’re as ubiquitous as it gets.”
“Go out on the West Side Highway in New York at 7am on a Tuesday — it’s basically a Bandit fashion show. They’ve built a premium brand in a category with almost no barriers to entry, which is incredibly difficult.”
“Their marketing is world-class. They could literally spin out their marketing team into its own company and that could be a hundred-million-dollar business.”

On Negoti

“Negoti is solving real-world problems in licensing. Licensing is a mess — and they built a marketplace structure that works for licensors and licensees with strong IP.”

On what makes a company venture-backable

“Our end game is finding 10–20x outcomes. A lot has to go right to get there. You have to enter at the right valuation, and the company has to have the ability to scale beyond just sports.”
“If a disproportionate amount of revenue is coming from teams, leagues, or properties, it’s probably not venture backable. Not because those aren’t great customers — but because there just aren’t many venture-scale exits from that playbook.”

5. Advice for Aspiring Investors & Founders

“The face of venture is changing. I wasn’t the guy with investment banking or private equity experience. At early stage, 90% of our diligence work is qualitative.”
“If you want to be in early-stage venture, it supports a much more liberal-arts background — much more qualitative than quantitative. Growth-stage is different: by then the product works, the model is proven, and it’s mostly execution.”
“Relationships matter. If you want to source, diligence, or support a company, everything goes back to who you know more than what you know.”
“Having operator experience made me a more well-rounded and empathetic investor. It helps us balance what we want with what founders are trying to achieve — and it enables us to call bullshit when we see it.”
“There are certain things in sports that you can’t change. What matters is learning how to navigate around them. Many companies fail because they don’t understand the structural realities of the sports industry.”