The application has been downloaded by 350,000 users, of which 250,000 were registered, writes Netokracija.
Apart from Luka Modrić, Silicon Valley veterans such as Ralph Ho, the 11th employee of X.com (later PayPal), has invested in Sportening. Support was also expressed by Sean Ellis, author of the book Hacking Growth and responsible for the rapid rise of Dropbox. In addition, Sacha Dragić, the founder of the Superbet group that previously acquired Superology, also invested.
Sportening is a specialized social network that connects sports club fans, allowing them to create fan communities, share content, rate players and other fan activities.
Sportening is the first startup investment for Luka Modrić.
“When I saw how passionate they are at Sportening in wanting to create a platform that connects and creates added value for the fans, I decided to get involved. Unfortunately, stadiums have limited capacity, bars and pubs have recently been closed, and fans cannot achieve a sense of belonging and community in such circumstances. Sportening solves this problem, and my wish with this investment is to at least partially give back to the fans for everything in my career.”
Luka is the first official player to join Sportening and will have an official channel. They are currently developing user profiles that will be useful for everyone on the platform, especially content creators/influencers and players. Creators will create fan player ratings, lineup predictors, videos, gifs, texts, polls, and Q&A.
Ivan Klarić has been active in the Croatian startup scene for ten years. In addition to founding Sportening and Superology, he has supported other entrepreneurs, investing in Good Game, TalentLyft, Stemi, and Fueloyal. Today, he wants to give fans their corner:
“People need sports because of their sense of belonging, community creation, and fun. Unfortunately, fans have been ignored on the internet, and it was unacceptable for us that the world’s largest community gathered around its sports teams has no place of its own. We want to solve this problem with Sportening and ensure that the fans have their platform. Luka’s support comes at the best time.”
Sportening gathered a team of over 50 people in Zagreb in just over a year, including returnees from large technology companies such as Google. They currently have offices in Zagreb and San Francisco and plan to soon open an office in London.
Sportening is available through the Google Play, App Store, and Huawei AppGallery platforms, and in addition to clubs from the top five leagues, the app is also open to fans of HNL clubs.
You can learn more about Sportening on its official website.
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