Aaron Rodgers Launches Equity Crowdfunding Campaign With New Venture OSDB

New York Jets quarterback Aaron Rodgers recently launched a community round on the popular startup investing site StartEngine for his new venture Online Sports Database (OSDB). 

StartEngine allows investors to invest their money in early-stage companies in exchange for equity and other securities.

The future Hall of Famer expressed his enthusiasm for providing fans with an opportunity to get involved and invest in the OSDB.

"I like the idea of giving fans the opportunity to invest and get behind something they feel connected to, like OSDB," Rodgers said in a statement to Bloomberg, revealing his commitment to making the fans a vital part of the project.

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This is in line with the model behind Rodger's previous team, the Greenbay Packers. The Packers are the only fan-owned football franchise, which allows the relatively small town to have an NFL team in their city. 

Established in 2021, OSDB is the brainchild of Rodgers and actor Ryan Rottman. The inspiration behind the database came to light during a dinner where Rottman suggested a sports version of IMDb, an online database of information related to films, TV series, podcasts, home videos, video games and streaming content.

"We went to dinner one night, and I just said, ‘As an athlete, is this something you think you would utilize? Like, do you think it would help you? Do you think people would care?'" recalled Rottman.

Since its inception, OSDB has gathered data on 26,000 professional athletes and plans to launch a subscription version of the database by September this year.

While many know of Rodgers's extensive football career, many might be unaware of his success as a venture capitalist and startup investor. Rodgers founded RX3 Growth Partners, a venture capital firm with over 17 startups in its portfolio. These include Super Coffee, Manscaped, Hydrow and Therabody. The company also invested in Hims & Hers Health Inc., Chemical Guys, Prive Revaux and Nom Nom, which saw a return on investment to the fund. 

Because of this success, the fund raised $150 million in May, even though the larger venture capital market is largely in decline.

The raise has garnered some criticism, seemingly due to confusion regarding the difference between equity crowdfunding and traditional crowdfunding.

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