Edinburgh start-up behind sports club tech with 'endless possibilities' gets £1 million boost

Fanbase recently launched a new portal for back office teams to collaborate, incorporating allocated stadium mapping, automated subscription and renewals. The company’s technology is now being utilised by several sports clubs across football, rugby, netball, ice hockey and handball, primarily in the UK, with customers including Hibernian FC, the Netball Superleague side Strathclyde Sirens and Super 6 rugby team Southern Knights. It also recently won its first US customer, and has already secured five additional teams in two weeks.

Alasdair Crawley, chief executive and co-founder of Fanbase, which has secured investment led by SaltPay, said: “Our vision is for Fanbase to unlock a huge amount of revenue for sports teams by making it easy to buy and engage with sports organisations from one platform. Once you turn the key and start using Fanbase, the possibilities are endless, from setting up your branded ticketing, utilising the data, and communicating with your fans.”

The company was recently accepted onto Microsoft’s start-up accelerator programme, supported by the managing director of Microsoft Sports, Jon Flynn, with Fanbase being the first UK sports tech start-up to join the scheme which comes with more than £250,000 of additional support. Crawley, chief product officer Michael Crawley and chief technology officer Carl Barton secured pre-seed funding in 2021. The fledgling firm’s headcount is now at ten, with plans to further scale the team over the next 12 months.