The global sports market is of gigantic size and potential, with an expected turnover of $5.2B (approx €4.36B) in 2024. In this context, a Dutch investment fund that specialises in sports technology, ISG Groeifonds, has announced the acquisition of Dotcomsport, a sports club management platform.
According to a statement from Gerard Helms, CEO of ISG Groeifonds, “Any company to be acquired (by ISG Groeifonds) will have to add value to our product portfolio. The company must be close to the club and athlete, in other words: with your feet on the (football) grass! With this buy-and-build strategy, we are able to stay at the forefront of the digital transformation of the sports market.”
And Dotcomsport has managed to do that, its platform is used by more than 500 sports clubs and federations in over 20 countries. Through its strategy of investing in multiple sport technology firms, ISG claims to leverage synergies that help the companies in its portfolio to grow even faster.
About Dotcomsport
The company was founded in 2008 by founder & CEO Johan Henkes. The platform offers amateur and professional football clubs and national federations an online Club Management System. It allows all those involved in the football organisation (players and staff members) to be optimally engaged in developing players, teams, and coaches according to a unified and structured methodology.
Dotcomsport’s goal is to support as many clubs, teams, players, and coaches as possible worldwide to perform at their best.
Gerard Helms, CEO of ISG Groeifonds, says, “Since January 2008, the team from Dotcomsport has poured its heart and soul into building and growing the company in the Netherlands and the rest of the world. The company has grown to a user portfolio of 500 organisations, operating in 23 countries. Dotcomsport has established itself as a stable company that is now an institution within the football market. We are proud that we are able to add it to our portfolio and enable it to continue its growth.”
The Dotcomsport platform is currently used by the Royal Dutch Football Association (KNVB) – the governing body of football in the Netherlands, as well as by over 500 sports organisations. Users of the platform also include federations in Malaysia and Saudi Arabia.
Aim of this acquisition
Johan Henkes, Founder & CEO of Dotcomsport, says, “Our company has a brilliant future ahead of it under the banner of ISG Groeifonds. This Dutch investment fund uses tactical acquisitions to harness the growth potential of sports technologies. Under our new ownership, Dotcomsport will continue to deliver the same quality that our users expect, while also benefiting from synergies with other companies in the ISG Groeifonds portfolio.”
ISG Groeifonds has previously acquired Talento, a Dutch platform that lets users keep track of players’ performances.
And now with the acquisition of Dotcomsport, Henkes says, “The synergy between Dotcomsport and Talento is crystal clear: the mission of both platforms is to use data to improve players’ performance. Now, all Talento users have been migrated to the Dotcomsport platform, which has greatly expanded our user community. This gives clubs and federations a more complete platform, with even more functionalities. It’s a win-win situation for everyone involved.”
Henkes will stay on as director of Dotcomsport and will also supervise new initiatives and acquisitions of ISG Groeifonds.
About ISG Groeifonds
ISG invests in the comprehensive sports analysis platform specialised in smart connection of all relevant data in sports. It offers sports organisations one online Club Management Platform, with which all those involved in the organisation (players and all staff members) can be optimally engaged in the development of players, trainers, coaches, and teams.
The company claims, with the current portfolio, it can serve a part of the world market for football clubs. To achieve the forecast growth, ISG says “we will keep on acquiring small-scale companies that develop niche products for the target group so that we are even better able to realise our mission: to help clubs to improve the performance of players, trainers, coaches, and teams according to a uniform and structured methodology.”
“To realise these acquisitions, it is necessary to have cash in hand. To fill this “war chest”, we started the digital funding campaign this year. We expect a return of 10 per cent,” the company mentions in a press release.
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