SportTech startup Coachbetter announced the successful completion of their €2.7 million seed-plus investment round led by Brighteye Ventures and ZEN11Holding, while a pool of experienced investors around DAZN Group Executive Vice Chairman John Gleasure also invested. Prominent names from international football also participated in the financing round, including 2018 FIFA World Cup winner and former Premier League star Steven Nzonzi.
“We are very pleased and excited about the support and trust of our new strategic partners as well as the strong commitment of our existing investors like the Swiss Founders Fund (SFF) to further digitize football team-management and coaching education at all levels, always with a strong focus to the needs of our users”, said Patrick Patzig, Co-founder & CEO of Coachbetter.
The Swiss startup has set itself the goal of revolutionizing traditional communication, team-management and coaching education through the use of fit-for-purpose and modern technologies with the most user-friendly platform that supports coaches, players, clubs and associations at all levels. Germany’s renowned football journal, Kicker, describes the startup’s platform as “Coaching 3.0”. All day-to-day activities of coaches are simplified and unique in the football landscape. Coachbetter´s features range from session- and match-day planning to player development with key data and statistics and video analysis. At the same time, the app adds communication features that connect coaches, players and parents.
Alex Spiro Latsis, Founding Partner at Brighteye, added: “Brighteye is delighted to support the Coachbetter team as they continue to grow. We were impressed not only by the team’s experience in the field and their passion, but by their significant traction and portfolio of existing customers and partners. We anticipate this new round of financing will help them to expand to exciting new football markets.”
The startup already supports thousands of football clubs in the USA, UK and German-speaking markets with lighthouse customers such as Borussia Dortmund, Miami Rush and the Austrian Football Federation. With the new capital from the funding round, Coachbetter aims to drive international growth and to further build innovative technology that is going to be available to everyone in the game.
Founded in October 2018 by Patrick Patzig, Simon Arpagaus, Stefan Steuble and Thomas Grimm, Coachbetter currently has 24 team members in 8 different countries. In 2021, the company was able to complete its pre-seed financing round of around €900k led by the Swiss Founders Fund (SFF) and TVC (TheVentureCity) as well as well-known investors from the sports industry. Users are thousands of professional and grassroots football clubs from all over the world including Borussia Dortmund, Sturm Graz, the Austrian and Welsh Football Federation, Weston FC, Miami Rush and the University of Oklahoma from the United States.
