Sports tech firm Pitchbooking has netted a £250,000 funding boost for it sports facility management platform.
Based in Scotland and Northern Ireland, its platform provides greater access to sports facilities for the public while streamlining the facility owner’s internal processes.
The funding round was led by Belfast-based investment firm Aurient and backed by Techstart Ventures and Co-Fund NI, managed by Clarendon Fund Managers. The round was completed by private investors across the UK and New York and will be used to support growth across UK and globally.
CEO Shea O’Hagan said: “Before Pitchbooking, finding a place to play meant the time and frustration of hopeful phone calls, booking slips and outdated payment methods.
“Facility managers, on the other hand, are too often caught in a painful administrative tangle of enquiries, invoices, double-bookings and other such headaches. Many also don’t have the time or resources to promote their facilities to the wider public”.
“With Pitchbooking, players can search thousands of facilities at the click of a button and complete their booking in less than a minute. Facility managers gain instant exposure to a wide sporting public and the ease of our simple, fully automated booking platform. We’ve seen that this encourages use of the facility, drives revenue to the facility owner, and ultimately, encourages more people to get active.”
Having launched last year, it has already facilitated more than 15,000 sport sessions for members of the public.
Aurient partners Anthony Kieran and Cecil Hetherington will be joining the board of Pitchbooking.
“Pitchbooking offers an elegant web-based solution to two common problems – fragmented information in terms of being able to see what facilities are available in your local area, and friction in the process of booking and payment leading to a market that functions very inefficiently,” said new chairman Hetherington.
“The Pitchbooking management team are 100 per cent focused and dedicated to creating a better experience for both users and providers of sports facilities, and they are dynamic and innovative in their approach. This is exactly the sort of company that we like to support.”
Having partnered with Goals, Pitchbooking now offers services in more than 50 locations across the UK.