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Sports firm completes funding round
14 March 2010 By Dermot Corrigan
Teamer, an online provider of sports team management tools, has completed a €500,000 funding round to support expansion into overseas markets.
The funding round, led by Bank of Ireland, which provided €350,000 under its Seed and Early Stage Equity Fund, also included €150,000 in Business Expansion Scheme (BES) investment.
Niall McEvoy, chief executive of Teamer, said the company planned to hire overseas staff to increase user numbers in key markets in the months ahead.
‘‘We have hired a British sales and marketing manager with a lot of digital advertising and sales experience, who is based full-time in London," McEvoy said.
‘‘We also have a new head of user acquisition to manage our marketing and promotion activities and bring new members to the site, particularly from Britain, but also the US and Australia. This year, we will be hiring three more new staff to help with this too."
Teamer.net is an online service that allows sports teams to communicate via text message, e-mail and blogs. It has 250,000 registered users. Launched in September 2008, the company received start-up funding from Enterprise Ireland’s BES scheme.
McEvoy said that securing second round funding had been a lengthy process.
‘‘We spoke to many different private investors and VCs last year, which was a particularly difficult time for fund-raising," he said. ‘‘We have a pretty robust business plan, and €500,000 was the figure we set to fund our next stage of growth. While it is six months later than we hoped, we hit all our targets through that period, which ultimately helped us bring the deals over the line."
Teamer.net is targeting 1.5 million users by 2011.McEvoy hopes to grow the business by offering selected partners access to the Teamer database.
‘‘We generate revenue through advertising campaigns for brands targeting consumers through the web, email and mobile messages," he said.
‘‘We have also done longer term sponsorship deals with Vodafone, Lucozade Sport, Allianz and Chorus NTL. We recently secured our first British deal with Exeter Friendly.
‘‘We have strategic partnerships with Four Four Two, Rugby World, All Out Cricket and Push Hockey, through their print magazines and online components.
‘‘We also do direct e-mail campaigns into sports clubs and work with professional sports coaches."
Teamer had a turnover of €250,000 in 2009, and McEvoy is projecting revenues of €800,000 this year.
‘‘In our business, you have to drive the traffic before the revenue arrives," he said. ‘‘Our monthly revenues have been growing since we cut our first advertising deal last June. We are looking to break even by 2011."
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