Washington [US], May 19 (ANI): Microsoft CEO and part-owner of Major League Soccer's franchise Seattle Sounders Satya Nadella is the leading investor in the 44 million USD Series A and A1 fundraising round by Major League Cricket (MLC), a T20 competition featuring six franchises that has been sanctioned by USA Cricket.

The league is targeted to launch next year.

"Major League Cricket (MLC) is pleased to announce it has completed an initial close of a $44 million Series A and A1 Fundraising Round led by a group of America's most successful and respected business leaders. 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 Twenty20 cricket league and open a new era for the world's second most popular sport in the United States," said an official statement from MLC.

Investors groups for Series A and A1 fundraising round, which includes MLC's seed funding round, were led by: Satya Nadella (CEO of Microsoft) and Soma Somasegar (Managing Director, Madrona Venture Group), Anand Rajaraman and Venky Harinarayan (Founding Partners at Milliways Ventures and Rocketship VC), Sanjay Govil (Founder and Chairman of Infinite Computer Solutions and CEO, Zyter), Anurag Jain (Managing Partner of Perot Jain, LP, Chairman of Access Healthcare) Ross Perot Jr. (Chairman, The Perot Group), Tanweer Ahmed (CEO, PAK Foods, CEO, OUR Energy and Owner of Prairie View Cricket Complex), The Baheti Family (Owners of YASH Technologies).

The $120 million investment into MLC will primarily be dedicated to building premier cricket-specific stadia and training centres to develop a new generation of American star cricketers.

This unprecedented infrastructure investment will transform the landscape for professional cricket and enable the United States to host global events over the next decade and beyond. As well as international games, world-class T20 action will be played annually with MLC bringing the best cricketers in the world to play in cricket-specific venues with natural turf wickets and first-class amenities for fans.

"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.

Additional Series A round investors include Troy Detrick, Founder of Canyon Oak Ventures, Mihir Worah, Former Chief Investment Officer, PIMCO, Preetish Nijhawan, Co-founder, Akamai and Co-Founder and GP of Cervin Ventures, Manish Parikh, Co-founder and CEO, Icon Systems Inc, Vikram Ramani, CTO Banking, FIS Global, Dhigha Sekaran, Director at Meta and former Microsoft Executive, Sankar Kaliaperumal, Managing Director, Accenture, Shantanu NarayenChairman and CEO, Adobe among others. (ANI)