By Paul Nicholson
April 24 – Sports group Doyen Global has invested in Squawka, the social media-driven sports app. Doyen principals Simon Oliveira and Matt Kay will both join the Squawka board.
Launched in April 2013 and already boasting a representation portfolio including Neymar, Xavi and recently signed Manchester United starlet Adnan Januzaj, Doyen will bring increased to Squawka’s ability to access top football talent – the fastest and most effective way to build large social media audiences.
Doyen is also well placed to help Squawka expand internationally with the networks that Oliveira and Kay bring to the table.
Squawka originally launched as a second screen app with live data visualisations and social media functionality for the 2012 European Football Championships. Since then it has expanded to include latest news, stats, game analysis, live blogs, and images and real-time data comparison tools.
Squawka has developed its own player performance analysis tool, Score, which looks at more than 500 million on-ball actions in real time to display the performance of each player.
Squawka says it is close to hitting 2 million monthly unique users across both its www.Squawka.com web platform and its iOS Squawka Football App. Average dwell time is said to be 39 minutes during live English Premier League games with over 10 screens viewed per user session.
Squawka investors include Forward Internet Group Founder Neil Hutchinson, brand guru Sir John Hegarty and Spark Ventures chairman Tom Teichman. No figure for the size of the Doyen investment has been released, but the Doyen contact list will long term likely be of greater value than any money they are putting on the table.
Squawka CEO and co-founder Sanjit Atwal said: “At a time when general VC interest in the sports sector has been significant, we have been working hard to bring together a team of like-minded strategic investors that can help propel Squawka to become a household name for football fans. By focusing on the business metrics alongside the incredible strategic value of the board we feel we have a real shot of becoming the de facto multi-device companion for football fans globally. We are excited to work with Doyen going forward.”
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