Peloton announced Monday that it is acquiring Precor, the longtime Woodinville, Wash,-based makers of commercial fitness equipment, in a deal valued at $420 million. Peloton has been riding a wave of popularity with its home-based interactive fitness program, and with the acquisition it plans to establish U.S. manufacturing capacity, boost research and development capabilities, and accelerate Peloton’s penetration of the commercial market, according to a news release. Founded in 1980, Precor has decades of experience supplying fitness equipment to clubs, hotels, fitness centers and home exercisers. The company is a unit of Finnish sports equipment maker Amer Sports, which is… Read More
Nike has acquired TraceMe, the Seattle startup co-founded by Seahawks quarterback Russell Wilson and backed by investors including Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, YouTube founder Chad Hurley, Alibaba co-founder Joe Tsai, and Seattle-based Madrona Venture Group. Sources close to the deal confirmed the news to GeekWire. We’ve reached out to Nike and will update this story when we hear back. TraceMe launched back in 2017, spinning out of Seattle startup studio Pioneer Square Labs. The company aimed to connect celebrities with “superfans” through its app via behind-the-scenes content, community features, and more. But TraceMe pivoted late last year, laying off staff, shutting… Read More
It started with a veteran tech executive trying to improve his golf game. Now Brett Campbell has turned his sports interest into a new venture firm. Campbell, co-founder of workplace automation software vendor Nintex, is the executive chairman of Overload Golf Ventures, a new group based in Kirkland, Wash. that is seeking to make investments in tech-focused golf companies. Campbell was taking golf lessons when he met Randall Henry, CEO of aboutGolf, a leading indoor golf simulator developer. They discussed how technology can be used to improve golf and get more people into the game. That eventually led to Campbell creating… Read More
Seattle esports betting startup Unikrn continues to grow and today announced another acquisition. The company has swooped up Berlin-based ChallengeMe.GG, an esports matchmaking service and long-time tournament partner of Unikrn. Unikrn CEO Rahul Sood said it was a multi-million dollar acquisition and called it “one of the biggest deals of my career.” Unikrn said it will create the “first crypto gaming platform” with the acquisition. “This is going to be the platform we use to bring skill-based betting products to our users as well,” Sood said in a blog post. “Remember, Unikrn has patent-pending technology on placing crypto bets on… Read More