Aaron Rodgers (No. 8) is a co-founder of RX3 and had several fellow QBs at a recent event.RX3 offering
back in march, Southern California’s Mission Viejo welcomed a star-studded lineup of current and former NFL quarterbacks, including Aaron Rodgers, Josh Allen and Bryce Young. They gather to participate in the third annual charity flag football tournament hosted by RX3 Growth Partners, the private equity firm that Rodgers co-founded with Nate Raab and Byron Ross in 2019. It was planned. The firm has been pooling athlete funds for large PE deals.
With so many boldface names, the event raised a total of $3 million and highlighted a core part of the company’s strategy.
“There are really strong relationships and connections between the NFL.” [players] In general,” managing partner Raabe said. “It was cool to see. I think that’s why we were able to raise so much money in such a short amount of time.”
This week, RX3 marks the one-year anniversary of the launch of its $150 million second fund (the company originally aimed to raise $120 million). Notable investors include Jared Goff, Allen, legendary swimmer Michael Phelps, actor Miles Teller, and musician Machine Gun Kelly. The underlying theory at the core of RX3 is that these investor celebrities add value to portfolio companies and by pooling their funds they can close large-scale deals that athletes typically do not have access to. is.
RX3’s debut capital of $50 million was deployed across 19 investments. His first five exits yielded a 60% internal rate of return. The second fund has been slow to deploy capital, which Rabe says is due to the macro turmoil of the past year, including high interest rates and valuation disparities. The fund has so far deployed about 10% of its capital into three investments. All of these deals took place earlier this year. RX3 participated in his $30 million funding round for video game studio Mountaintop led by Anthos Capital in January, and two months later joined L Catterton-led Adventure with his vehicle maker Storyteller Overland. He did something similar with his investment in TAXA Outdoors. .
RX3 partner Andrew Costa pointed out that the firm conducted diligence on about 600 companies last year. “That doesn’t mean they won’t be an investment in the future,” Costa said. “The biggest thing is most of these brands have had no capital for 22 to 24 months and have had to make some difficult cuts to become profitable and really hone that revenue engine. They are now coming back to the market and more optimized companies are emerging.”
Mr. Rabe said the company’s immediate priorities are, among other things, pursuing liquidity events for RX3’s first fund, which holds Therabody stock, and further leveraging capital in its second fund. “We have four or five people. [companies] We are working even harder now,” Raabe said. “We expect it to be even more active for the rest of this year and into 2025.”
