When Shaun White’s pro winter sports platform Snow League announced a $15 million funding last week, it wasn’t obvious that the Jets, Pacers, Bruins—and even Major League Baseball—are technically among the investors.
That’s because the ownership groups of those organizations are among the limited partners, or LPs, for 359 Capital—a venture-capital fund that invests in companies adjacent to the sports, media, and entertainment industries. 359 Capital, one of the anchor investors of Snow League’s new $15 million funding, had a major announcement of its own last week: it spun out from Sapphire Ventures into its own independent entity, led by Michael Spirito, managing partner and cofounder.
Private-investment firms are typically tight-lipped about the investors who contribute capital to their funds, other than vague descriptors like “pension funds” and “family offices.” But 359 Capital wants the public to know where the money it’s investing comes from. In addition to the Jets, Pacers, Bruins, and MLB, 359 Capital’s LP pool includes the ownership group of the NHL’s Sharks, Madison Square Garden Sports—which owns the Knicks and Rangers—and Adidas, private-equity firm Arctos Partners, and media giant Sinclair.
“We want to bring down the veil between LPs and portfolio companies, [general partners], and the consumer public,” Spirito tells Front Office Sports. “That doesn’t exist at other funds. It’s really one of our calling cards, something we hang our hat on.”
Previously called Sapphire Sports, 359 is now completely independent from Sapphire Ventures, although all the people who worked on the funds that already exist are coming along for the new ride. Sapphire Ventures has no ownership of 359 Capital, Spirito says.
“Everything that was Sapphire Sport is now 359 Capital,” he tells FOS. “It’s the whole team that’s coming along. But we are completely independent.”
The firm does not invest in teams, but instead focuses on investments in consumer-facing companies that are adjacent to the sports, media, and entertainment world—portfolio companies include sports-media company Overtime, AI company Perplexity, and online content platform beehiiv.
The firm is still investing out of its second fund, which closed in 2023 with $181 million in committed capital. Spirito says they’ve deployed about half of that capital. The firm is not currently fundraising.
“We have our heads down investing out of that second fund and supporting our portfolio companies,” he tells FOS. “We will contemplate our next fundraise starting at the back half of next year.”
The Snow League investment is unique compared to 359’s other portfolio companies. First launched last year and led by Olympic gold medal-willing snowboarder Shaun White, its first season features a four-event global format for snowboarding and freeskiing with a prize purse of more than $2 million. The events are broadcast on NBC Sports and Peacock in the U.S. The Snow League’s season spans multiple months; its season began this March in Aspen, and the next set of events will be held in China starting Dec. 4. It returns to Aspen in February and concludes in Switzerland in March 2026. Participating athletes include Zoe Atkin, a U.K. freeskier who competed in the 2022 Olympics in Beijing, Queralt Castellet, a Spanish snowboarder who won a Silver Medal in those same Olympics, and Nick Goepper, a U.S. freeskier with three Olympic medals, two silver and one bronze.
Spirito says the Snow League stood out as a “new product company that has come onto the scene as a startup and is going after a large market, with a new way to service that market.”
It’s the first “direct investment into a purely new sport/league company” that 359 Capital has made.
“New league formation, new IP, that’s inherently interesting to us,” he says.
Moving forward, 359 will look to carve out its own identity, separate from its history with Sapphire Ventures. The new name is a reference to the four-minute mile, a task that was once thought impossible but has now been achieved by roughly 2,000 men; although no woman has yet accomplished the feat, it is not out of reach. Faith Kipyegon recently came close, running a 4:06.42 mile.
“I can assure you there’s nobody on our team who is even close to approaching that,” Spirito says with a laugh. “It’s just one of those markers that when you hear it, it resonates. Our core mission is helping founders do the impossible.”
