Messi's VC firm Play Time HoldCo, is listed among the investors in the $1B round Fei-Fei Li's World Labs raised this year.

The rest of that cap table: NVIDIA, Andreessen Horowitz, Fidelity, and more.

World Labs builds “spatial intelligence”, with two shipped products in Marble, an editable 3D environment tool, and RTFM, a real-time world engine.

Messi launched Play Time in October 2022 out of San Francisco with Razmig Hovaghimian. Their first two deals, naturally, were in football: Matchday, a game for fans, and AC Momento, which auctions match-worn shirts. Since then, the portfolio has gone almost entirely to AI, investing in Field AI, SuperAnnotate, Intangible, Perceptron, and now World Labs. PitchBook counts roughly 10 investments total.

A name like Messi’s, on top of a partnership with Silicon Valley minds, brings a different kind of access and value to a venture firm like Play Time.

Erling Haaland gained more Instagram followers at the 2026 World Cup than any other player, and he did it partly by being chronically online.

He added around 32.1 million over the 39-day tournament, going from 40.6 million to 72.7 million (Sportico). Only Cape Verde goalkeeper Vozinha came close (+29.4M).

Some of it was the football; Norway made its first World Cup since 1998 and its first quarterfinal ever, knocking out Brazil on the way, with Haaland scoring 7, finishing tied for 3rd with Jude Bellingham in the Golden Boot race.

The rest came from the Snapchat stories, the selfies, and the habit of dropping "nice" in the comments under random Instagram posts. His Reels cleared 683 million views during the tournament, and accounts have started captioning posts "Instagram is cool because you could post (literally anything) and Haaland will comment.”

Haaland understood the value of the moment, and doubled his audience by scrolling and being himself. The attention he gained during the biggest tournament in the world brings him leverage as a top-level athlete: ore endorsements will follow, but the real value from this attention will come via leveraging his audience in ownership negotiations.

While most brands chase athletes with millions of followers, a company with millions in revenue went the opposite direction through Athletes & Assets™.

HEX Performance is a Baltimore based laundry care brand built specifically for sports. Founded by Drew Westervelt, a Maryland lacrosse Hall of Famer who got tired of his gear smelling terrible after every session, HEX has spent over a decade becoming the go-to for performance fabric care.

They don’t need more views at this point, they need more access.

Enter Christopher Wormley.

Chris is a 9 year NFL Defensive End. He was drafted by the Baltimore Ravens in 2017 played three seasons Baltimore, then went to Pittsburgh, Carolina, back to Baltimore, and then Indianapolis. His journey ended up being a reason why he was an attractive long term partner for Hex:

One text from a trusted veteran to an equipment manager is worth more to HEX than 10 million impressions.

HEX partnered with Chris for access. That’s the difference between a sponsorship and a partnership. Music to our ears.

Our case study series resumes in the coming weeks...

Bathhouse is a New York sauna and contrast therapy operator. Travis Talmadge and Jason Goodman opened the first location in a converted Williamsburg soda factory in 2019. There are three now, with day passes starting at $39, and memberships running at $145 to $225 a month.

In May the company disclosed a $35M round led by Imaginary Ventures, the firm behind Skims and Glossier, and its first deal in pure hospitality. The round had 28 investors, including PLUS Capital collective members Klay Thompson, Marcus Smart and DK Metcalf. Forbes reported a wider investor roster last November that also names Paul George, Aaron Gordon, Domantas Sabonis, Alex Caruso, Isaiah Thomas, Kelly Olynyk, Weston McKennie and Ian Happ. Most of them were customers first.

For the athletes, this is what a recovery habit looks like when it converts to a cap-table position. PLUS Capital ran its members in as a collective, which is how a competitive $35M consumer round ends up with a dozen pro athletes in it instead of one marquee name. The check size drops, the access problem gets solved by the vehicle, and the athletes end up owning a piece of something they were already paying $39 a visit to use.