A permanent-capital vehicle across six named sports
Gamma Waves Partners is a permanent-capital sports investment platform launched on 24 April 2026 by Andrea Agnelli, the former Juventus and ECA chairman, alongside Giorgio Chiellini and Rocco Benetton. Based in Amsterdam, it invests across two streams: minority Sports IP positions — competitions, franchises, athletes, formats — and growth-stage Sports Technology in fan engagement, data, AI-automated content and connected-athlete tools.
The launch materials name six target sports the fund is focused on: basketball, hockey, cricket, tennis, baseball and rugby. Football is not among the sectors named in the launch communications. Several outlets — including the Financial Times (via SGI Europe) and Inside World Football — have read the omission as a deliberate positioning choice given the founders' football backgrounds. The fund itself has not publicly stated a football exclusion, and its broader mandate references clubs and teams without limiting the definition to a particular code.
Structure, capital, and mandate
The founders and the mandate
The three founders bring different profiles to the platform. Andrea Agnelli spent twelve years as Juventus chairman and is a co-founder and former chair of the European Club Association; his official Gamma Waves biography lists Juventus, UEFA, ECA and the Super League among his sports leadership experience. Giorgio Chiellini captained Juventus and Italy across his playing career and now holds a stake in Mercury13, the women's-football ownership platform. Rocco Benetton brings the Benetton family's long history in sports investment, most notably in Formula 1 and rugby.
The launch positions Gamma Waves as a permanent-capital vehicle rather than a fixed-life fund, giving it the flexibility to hold assets across cycles rather than a defined exit window. The two-stream design — sports IP on one side, sports technology on the other — is presented by the fund as a mutually reinforcing model: IP-led access selects the technology investments, and the technology stack strengthens the underlying IP.
At €100m targeted and €55m committed, the platform is positioned as a network-and-expertise play at modest capital scale rather than a large-check-writing vehicle. The founders' backgrounds include senior football-industry experience — a factor several sources have flagged when discussing the fund's chosen sectors — but the platform's stated focus is on the six named sports and the technology stack that serves them.
Direction in 2026
The fund is freshly launched and its first investment is reported to be in due diligence. From that starting point, four forward-looking questions frame the next twelve to twenty-four months of the platform's development:
The first investment and what it signals. Which sector Gamma Waves opens with — sports IP or sports tech, and which of the six named sports — will help the market read the sequencing of the two-stream model.
The evolution of the target-sector list. Whether the six named sports are the mandate or a starting universe, and whether the platform's “clubs, teams” language extends over time into additional sports.
LP composition beyond the founding families. How the €100m target is completed, and which additional institutional or family capital comes in alongside the founders' own circles.
The IP + tech thesis in practice. Whether the accelerator-and-distribution model — using IP access to source and validate technology investments — produces the compounding effect the fund's launch materials describe.
The 25% gross IRR target is one lens through which the strategy will be measured, but the more useful signal in the first twenty-four months will be the shape of the portfolio being built — the mix of IP to tech, the geographic distribution, and the depth of the founders' involvement in each investment.
- Gamma Waves launch release (BusinessWire / FinancialContent, Apr 2026)
- Inside World Football (Apr 2026)
- Sporting Goods Intelligence (FT-sourced; 25% IRR; the football-sector reading)
- Global Banking & Finance (€55m commitments); Sportcal
- Gamma Waves Partners official team biographies (gammawavespartners.com)
- Caveat: 25% IRR is a stated target; full LP base undisclosed; the reading of “football exclusion” is an inference by outlets rather than a stated fund position