Elysian Park Ventures Backs the First Global Pro Dance League with $7M Seed Round

The intersection of sport, culture, and technology just added a new major player.

Elysian Park Ventures — the private investment arm behind the Los Angeles Dodgers ownership group — has dropped $7 million into the International Dance League (IDL), the first global professional sports league built entirely around dance. Founded by the creators of STEEZY, the digital dance platform that helped define online choreo culture, IDL is gearing up for an early-2026 debut.

The thesis: dance isn’t just a cultural movement — it’s an underdeveloped sports property. And with a massive global participant base and digital-native fan community, the league sees an opportunity to build the “NBA of dance.”

“IDL is the most entertaining new sports property we’ve seen in a long time. Their audience is young, global, and digital native — dance as a sport is about to capture the world’s imagination,” said Pete Vlastelica, Managing Partner at Elysian Park.

The cap table is stacked with names who know how to build fan ecosystems: KB Partners, former TikTok CMO Nick Tran, and former NBA CMO Tammy Henault.
KB’s Steve Ahern adds: “This is more than a new competition format — it’s a full youth-to-pro pipeline for one of the most passionate participant bases on earth.”

Elysian Park’s Track Record: Betting Early on Sports Innovation

Elysian Park has backed 70+ sports, tech, and culture startups, with 13 exits so far. Their portfolio includes:

  • DraftKings (NASDAQ: DKNG) — an early stake that scaled past $100M after DK’s $3.3B 2020 reverse-merger IPO

  • Appetize — sold to SpotOn for $415M

  • Second Spectrum — acquired by Genius Sports

  • Sport Innovation Lab — acquired by Genius in 2024

  • PrizePicks — set for a blockbuster exit with Allwyn International acquiring a 62% stake at a $1.6B valuation in 2026

Elysian’s bets consistently center on data, fan behavior, and emerging sports infrastructure — and IDL fits the blueprint.

Building Dance’s First Global League

IDL’s $7M seed round will accelerate:

  • Core tech + media infrastructure

  • Event production

  • Team operations and logistics

  • Foundation for media rights + global expansion

The inaugural season launches March 2026 with six events in six global cities.

The vision: fully professional teams, contracted athletes, and fanbases that look more like music-festival communities than traditional sports franchises.

Founder & CEO Connor Lim frames it simply:

“Dance has shaped global youth culture for decades — but dancers have never had the infrastructure to compete professionally. IDL changes that.”

A new category of sport is being built in real time — one that merges performance, media, and global digital culture. And with Elysian Park stepping in early, IDL now has the backing to scale fast.

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