Total Sports Asia (TSA), a sports marketing agency with a pan-India presence, has raised $15 million in private equity funding from UK's Nectar Capital.
TSA owns the media rights to various sporting competitions such as the US Open and badminton tournaments of Badminton World Federation. It also represents football teams such as Real Madrid, Spanish and Italian national football teams.
In India, TSA has tied up with real estate developer Nirmal Lifestyle Ltd to launch US Open branded real estate development. Under the tie up, Nirmal will recreate a replica of US Open clubs, villas, a world-class tennis academy and several other features in its developments.
The funds raised would be used for the company's growth plans such as acquiring new rights, and also for potential acquisitions in mobile aggregation space, a release said. The company has operations in Southeast Asia, India, Japan, China and Korea.
Nectar Capital makes growth capital investments in sectors such as media, leisure, and creative industries.
Earlier this year, TSA made a few top management hires in India. It hired Suvrangsu Mukherjee as managing director from IMG, where he was vice-president, in June this year. It has also appointed Prashant Kumar Singh as associate director, business development last month.
Some other companies operating in the sports marketing segment in India are IMG (which helped design Indian Premier League), Globosport and Nimbus.
"Despite the current global economic and financial environment, sports and entertainment in Asia is a sunrise industry," said Marcus Luer, Group CEO of TSA, in a release.
