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Rocket Youth scores $100M in funding from LeBron James’ business manager and others in sports world  

Nancy Dahlberg
Nancy Dahlberg
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By Nancy Dahlberg

Rocket Youth, a Miami-based startup that helps youth sports-oriented businesses to operate and grow more effectively while maintaining their operational independence, recently has raised more than $100 million in backing led by sports industry veterans Maverick Carter, the business manager of NBA superstar LeBron James, and Daniel Sillman, CEO of live soccer events and media firm Relevent Sports founded with Stephen Ross. Investment firm ZBS Partners also participated in the funding.

“It’s difficult to understate just how profound an impact youth sports have had on my life; so much of who I am today stems from what I learned playing basketball and football growing up. It’s incredibly exciting for me to invest in and be a partner to Rocket Youth, a platform providing similar opportunities for kids nationwide by enabling coaches and educators to focus their energy on mentoring the leaders of tomorrow,” said Carter, in a statement.

Eric Rapps, Jake Sloane and Frank Zhang co-founded Rocket Youth in 2024.

 “The investment parents make in their children is probably the most significant investment they’ll make, and we don’t believe that that’s going to change over time. We think this is a very resilient, attractive industry, and we also think that our operational model adds a lot of value in this particular industry,” said Rapps, Rocket Youth’s CEO, in an interview with Refresh Miami.

Eric Rapps, co-founder and CEO of Rocket Youth

“What’s unique about us is that we don’t run these businesses. We’re partnering with great operators, and we’re providing them support. But day in, day out, they’re running the business. They get to preserve their local identities and their independence,” added Rapps, who previously worked in the gaming industry as an executive with Playtika and founded Shovi Group, an investment firm.

Rapps described the main ways Rocket Youth provides value to these businesses. The first way is by alleviating the administrative burden for their partner businesses as much as possible, such as with payroll, insurance, taxes, accounting, etc. The second way is through growth operations – such as marketing, CRM, pricing, analytics, M&A and business development. “If they want to expand the business organically or inorganically, we do all the heavy lifting there,” Rapps said.

The third way is the partnering businesses become part of a group of like-minded operators, which is rare among mom and pop businesses. “With us, you’re part of this ecosystem where you’re able to now share data, you’re able to benchmark, you can cross pollinate learning and best practices,” Rapps said. There can also be cost synergies when you are part of a larger buying group and revenue opportunities to together open up new business lines.

Today, Rocket Youth is operational across 10 states (not Florida yet) and owns more than 20 different businesses. It is active in five verticles; lacrosse, volleyball, basketball, swimming, and gymnastics, Rapps said. “Now we have over 800 employees, and the business is growing very, very nicely.”

About 20 Rocket Youth team members work in Florida, and six of them, mainly from the growth opps team, work in the main office in Miami, where Rapps is also based. Rocket Youth is one of dozens of sports-oriented startups being built in South Florida.

 “I personally am very passionate about building out the tech ecosystem in Miami,” said Rapps. “I think being able to attract more talent to Miami and put Miami on the map for new businesses, not necessarily just the existing big ones, and in industries that aren’t typically associated with Miami or Florida, is super important.”

What’s next? ”It’s just expanding the business the way we have in the first year,” he said. “We want to continue to do acquisitions and partner with great operators. Youth sports is definitely a focus of ours, but I think there’ll be an opportunity to expand, possibly beyond sports into academics also or arts, and at that point, it’s really just owning the operational model and executing and partnering with more companies.”

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