Greg Norman Company Leads $3Mm Series A Round Investment in Spalk

West Palm Beach, Fla. (July 8, 2021) – Spalk today announced their $3MM Series A investment round, led by the Greg Norman Company. Additional investors in the round included Stadia Ventures, Icehouse Ventures and APEX Capital as well as involvement from a number of professional athletes including motorsport driver, Mitchell Evans and NBA Player, Steven Adams.

Spalk’s Virtual Commentary Studio technology is used by sports leagues and broadcasters to remotely produce and distribute multi-lingual commentary for live broadcasts. Fans are able to choose a commentator for each game that suits their preferred language, style or bias – driving fan engagement while increasing audience size and lowering production costs for content owners.

“Sport is all about emotion and the role of a sports commentator is to help the fans at home revel in that emotion,” said Greg Norman. “So we are, of course, excited by what Spalk is doing to allow broadcasters and leagues to more cost-effectively and remotely produce commentary for their fans around the world.”

Spalk was originally the winner in “Greg Norman’s Search for the Next Sports Entrepreneur” held at the University of Miami in March 2017, wherein Greg Norman and his team of investors held a worldwide search to discover the next successful inventors, creators, and innovators in sport. After leading Spalk’s Seed Capital raise in 2018, the Greg Norman Company has continued to support Spalk, their expanding offerings, and the value their technology adds for some of the world’s leading sports properties.

Profitable since early 2021, Spalk’s browser based software produces and distributes commentary for hundreds of live sports events each week. Their technology is used extensively by sporting bodies like FIBA, World Rugby & FIVB as well as broadcasters like DAZN and Sports Flick. Additionally, Spalk has built the world’s largest Talent Marketplace of professional commentators — with access to pre-vetted freelancers in more than 50 languages across 30 sports.

“Remote production and personalization of live content represent the intersection of two mega-trends in sport and we are thrilled to be on this journey with Spalk as they disrupt this multi-billion dollar, legacy industry,” said Brandon Janosky, Managing Partner at Stadia Ventures.

The funds from the oversubscribed round will be used to accelerate sales and marketing efforts, with Spalk seeing growth from sports properties with international fan bases as well as those organisations looking to reduce their production costs. Having released SRT signal compatibility in early 2021, Spalk is also expecting to see increasing uptake in traditional broadcast coverage and distribution.

“Using our Virtual Commentary Studio, sports leagues and broadcasters no longer have to fly commentators to the stadium or studio to call games – they can do it from a laptop anywhere in the world,” said Ben Reynolds, CEO of Spalk. “We are really proud to have support from Greg, Steven, Mitch and our other investors and are excited to continue leading the industry when it comes to remote commentary production & distribution.”

For more information: www.spalk.co

Arguably the most successful athlete-turned-businessman in the world, Greg Norman is known as much for his entrepreneurial spirit in the boardroom as his dominance on the golf course. The internationally renowned “Great White Shark” won more than 90 tournaments worldwide, including two Open Championships, and he holds the distinction of defending his No. 1 position in the world golf rankings for 331 weeks, the second-longest reign in history.

Greg Norman now transcends the game of golf, with over a dozen companies around the world bearing his name and the iconic shark logo as part of the Greg Norman Company, which he leads as Chairman & CEO. His internationally recognized brand boasts more than 100 golf course designs across six continents, a global real estate collection, award-winning wine, golf-inspired lifestyle apparel and a diverse investment division.

For more information www.shark.com

A New York City-based company with New Zealand origins, Spalk launched in 2017 under the premise that every sports fan should be able to listen to their favorite commentator when streaming live sports. With that goal, they developed and patented an Enterprise Software Solution to help broadcasters, sports leagues and teams deliver multiple commentary options for their live sports streams to enable a customized viewing experience and grow their audience all with the benefit of reducing broadcast production costs.The Virtual Commentary Studio now makes it easy and scalable to produce remote commentary customized to unique and local audiences.

Since launch, Spalk has covered more than 20,000 live events for 100+ content partners who have seen up to a 70% increase in audience size. www.spalk.co