Tribesports operates a sports-focused social networking platform that launched last year from London’s Silicon Roundabout, aimed at motivating sports enthusiasts to connect online and improve offline. Users join “Tribes” by sport, location, position and ability, take “Challenges”, organize events, and can donate via JustGiving integration. The platform also includes a product-side aggregation of over 1.5 million sports products from more than 250 retailers, letting users add equipment to profiles, write reviews, create wish lists, and enabling the company to take commissions on sales alongside targeted sponsorship and advertising packages. The 14-person startup reports strong engagement: power users visit over 200 times per month, spend up to three full days per month on the site, activation rates rose 300% month-over-month in February, and roughly 30% of the network is outside the U.K. Tribesports plans to use new funding to focus on core product development, user growth and global expansion. Tribesports operates a social network tailored to sports enthusiasts, using a recommendation engine to surface sport-specific content and integrating gamification features like leaderboards, badges, and challenges. The platform lets users build detailed profiles, join “Tribes” by sport or ability, track training, and take or fund challenges via JustGiving integration. It also indexes more than 1 million products across over 1,000 sports so users can add, review, and purchase equipment through the site. The company plans to launch a public beta and develop native mobile apps to complement a mobile-friendly web experience. Tribesports’s revenue model centers on taking a commission on products sold through the site and selling targeted sponsorship and advertising packages. The startup is run by three former mydeco executives and is led by CEO Steve Reid; it is based in the U.K. and recently completed a seed fundraise.

Total raised

$3M

Funding rounds

2

Latest round

Series A

Latest activity

Mar 2012