Osborne Clarke has once again advised Prematch, the Cologne-based social platform for amateur football, on a successfully completed financing round. Professional footballers Serge Gnabry and David Raum and Jürgen Klopp's family office have now invested in the start-up as business angels. 

A social network for amateur football? This is the business model of the start-up Prematch: Founded in 2021 by Fiete Grünter, Lukas Röhle and Niklas Brackmann, the Cologne-based company claims to offer the “best app for real football”, namely a platform on which amateur footballers and their fans can access and exchange news, performance data, statistics, market value and other player ratings – from the district to the regional league. 

Players receive an individual profile with personal performance data and comprehensive statistics; users can add favourites such as players, teams and leagues they want to follow and receive personalised news and results for up to 80,000 matches every weekend. Last year, the app was used by at least one player in 94 per cent of all amateur teams, according to the company. Prematch has also been available for youth players in Germany since this season.

In 2022, the start-up received EUR 1.7 million from investors such as Gorillas founder Jörg Kattner, followed by EUR 2.4 million from the Schadeberg Family Office and business angels such as Verena Pausder, Patric Fassbender and Marcus Stahl in May of this year.

With the recently successfully completed financing round, further big names are now participating in Prematch: Two top German players – Serge Gnabry from FC Bayern Munich and David Raum from RB Leipzig – and the family office around Jürgen Klopp, currently coach at Liverpool FC, are also on board. As business angels, the three are to contribute “their expertise and passion” to the young company.

Osborne Clarke has advised Prematch in all financing rounds since its foundation – the current project was successfully completed under the leadership of Till-Manuel Saur and with Nicolas Gabrysch, Robert Marx, Benedikt Hülsmann, Luca Mross (all Corporate / VC), Dr Flemming Moos (Data Protection), Julian Jentsch and Karina Naumann (both Labour Law).

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