Featured image credit: Stewart Attwood
Rugby-inspired ticketing start-up Fanbase, which specialises in software to deliver more efficient mobile ticketing and an improved fan experience for smaller clubs, has raised £1m (€1.1m/$1.2m) in a recent investment round.
The Edinburgh-based firm is hoping to expand its presence in the US, and is already utilised by clubs in Scotland including Scottish Premiership side Hibernian FC, Netball Superleague’s Strathclyde Sirens and Super 6 rugby team Southern Knights. The start-up also recently announced a partnership with the Scottish Ice Hockey League.
The Fanbase platform also includes a recently launched portal that enables back office teams to collaborate, incorporating allocated stadium mapping, automated subscriptions and renewals.
The funding round was led by SaltPay, a company that provides payment solutions for small and medium-sized businesses. Fanbase was involved in an initial seed funding round of nearly £500,000 in May 2021.
Fanbase was launched that same year and capitalised on an idea formed when former rugby player Michael Crawford (pictured right) and his brother Alasdair (pictured middle) got involved in helping a local rugby club, a few years prior. The foundations for the app were developed with help from third co-founder, Carl Barton (pictured left).
Chief executive Alasdair said: “Our vision is for Fanbase to unlock a huge amount of revenue for sports teams by making it easier to buy and engage with sports organisations outside of the top tier.”
Fanbase also recently secured its first US customer, soccer club DeKalb County United in Illinois, which then led to the platform securing an additional five partnerships with US clubs.
“We are enabling sports organisations to launch a team-branded mobile-optimised, sports-focussed digital ticketing service in minutes, while increasing hospitality revenue and saving hours per week for staff and volunteers responsible for bookings and operations,” added Alasdair.
“We are now a fully-integrated sports ticketing tech stack that can handle online, ticket office and ‘pay at the gate’, so right through from ticket office order, payment, and fulfilment.
“Clubs using Fanbase can use our data layer to track fan data, identify audiences, and optimise sales. They can communicate directly with their fans from the platform via push notifications, and we’re also working on unlocking more channels.”
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