America’s Major League Cricket has announced that it has received 120 million dollars in funding from the series A and A1 fundraising rounds, which include Silicon Valley luminaries such as Satya Nadella.

According to MLC, the six-team franchise T20 competition sanctioned by USA Cricket, 44 million dollars have been secured following the completion of these investment rounds, with an additional 76 million dollars to be secured over the next year.

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Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella led a group that invested 16 million dollars in the MLC enterprise’s central equity pool, alongside Dallas-based Ross Perot Jr, a Texas billionaire, and his partner Anurag Jain.

It has been learnt that the Nadella group will obtain the rights to operate the Seattle franchise of the MLC while the Perot-led consortium will operate the Dallas MLC franchise, a Cricbuzz report said.

Anand Rajaraman and Venky Harinarayan (Founding Partners at Milliways Ventures and Rocketship VC), Sanjay Govil (Founder and Chairman of Infinite Computer Solutions and CEO of Zyter), The Baheti Family (owners of YASH Technologies), and Tanweer Ahmed are among the other investors (CEO, PAK Foods, CEO, OUR Energy). Ahmed also owns America’s largest cricket complex (Prairie View Cricket Complex), which is located on the outskirts of Houston and includes five turf-wicket grounds.

The completion of these investment rounds is a significant boost for this cricket “start-up.” MLC is required to build six world-class cricket stadiums as part of their agreement with USA Cricket. Notably, MLC has exclusive negotiating agreements with city governments in the greater Seattle, Los Angeles, and San Francisco Bay areas to build multi-million dollar cricket stadiums.

The acquisition of funds in rounds A and A1 will strengthen the enterprise’s financial muscle in order to close the deals currently being negotiated. MLC has already signed a long-term lease for Airhogs Stadium near Dallas and plans to begin renovating the stadium for cricket use this summer.

“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,” said Sameer Mehta and Vijay Srinivasan, co-founders, Major League Cricket in a statement.

“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,” he added.

(Inputs from IANS)