Infinite Reality Buys Drone Racing League for $250 Million
(Bloomberg) -- Drone racing, once a niche hobby, has become the latest sports play after the Drone Racing League was acquired by metaverse firm Infinite Reality for $250 million.
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Drone racers fly quadcopters, aircraft with four propellers. Often, pilots wear virtual reality goggles that receive a feed from the camera embedded on the drone and maneuver as if they were in the craft itself in order to steer it.
As part of the acquisition, Infinite Reality will take on DRL’s staff, while DRL’s chief exectutive officer and founder Nicholas Horbaczewski will become Infinite Reality’s global president.
DRL, founded in 2015, is primarily backed by investors including RSE Ventures, the venture firm co-founded by Miami Dolphins owner Stephen Ross. Other investors include Liberty Media, T-Mobile, CAA Ventures and Lux Capital.
Infinite Reality is a technology provider that helps build metaverse experiences. It also owns e-sports franchises in games such as League of Legends and Call of Duty. The deal values Infinite Reality at $3.5 billion, the companies said in a statement. A spokesperson for DRL declined to disclose the financial structure of the deal.
Read More: Drone Racing League Wants to Be Next NASCAR
Outside of its investors, DRL’s partnerships include the U.S. Air Force, Google Cloud, Allianz, NBC, Sony, and a $100 million deal with Algorand, a blockchain tech company.
DRL president Rachel Jacobson will become Infinite Reality’s president of global business, ventures and partnerships. Jacobson previously worked at the NBA, where she served as the league’s senior vice president of business development.
“Our platform is about reaching audiences, the DRL has a large and exciting fan base and we have an opportunity to bring that fan base into immersive experiences,” said John Acunto, CEO of Infinite Reality, in an interview.
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