Satya Nadella, Shantanu Narayen among investors in first U.S. T20 league

Indian-American CEOs of Microsoft and Adobe, Satya Nadella and Shantanu Narayen, will fund Major League Cricket, the new T20 league in the U. S.

In a significant push to popularise cricket in the U. S., a $120 million funding has been secured from prominent Indian-American business leaders—including Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella and Adobe CEO Shantanu Narayen—to launch the first professional T20 league in the U. S.

Major League Cricket (MLC), the first professional Twenty20 Cricket League in the U. S., announced Thursday that it has completed an initial close of a $44 million Series A and A1 Fundraising Round led by a group of America’s leading business leaders.

It said that with an additional commitment of $76 million in further fundraising over the next 12 months in place, MLC plans to deploy more than $120 million to launch the country’s first-ever professional T20 league.

The investor groups for the Series A and A1 Fundraising Round, which includes MLC’s seed funding round, were led by Mr. Nadella among others.

"The significant funding committed by an outstanding group of investors will allow Major League Cricket to build first-class facilities and accelerate the sport’s development across the country, bringing world-class professional cricket to the world’s largest sports market,” Major League Cricket cofounders Sameer Mehta and Vijay Srinivasan said.

“This investor group comprises leading business executives and successful tech entrepreneurs who have led some of the world’s most prominent companies.

"They bring tremendous experience and expertise in support of MLC’s plans to launch a transformative Twenty20 league and establish America as one of the world’s leading homes for international cricket events,” they said.