Press Sports, a sports social media app, announced the closing of its $1.5 million seed round of funding as it seeks to capitalize on the recent NCAA NIL rule change.
Press Sports is a platform where athletes, coaches and fans self-promote athletic achievements.
Former D1 baseball player and CEO Conrad Cornell said; “We started this for a very simple reason; we did a terrible job of documenting our careers and knew that we were not alone. The saturation of mainstream social media was preventing athletes from promoting their own abilities, and we saw the opportunity to create a healthy platform and impact the careers of athletes from all levels and sports around the world.”
Co-founder Drew Williams said, “There was never an online sports network for us to share our highlights on and connect with others from within our sports community. A social platform solely dedicated to sports was a void that we knew we could fill with the right team,” said
After seeing early traction and engaged users, Tyler Droll and Tom Chernetsky joined Press Sports to lead product and technology after founding YikYak and growing the platform to several million monthly active users.
The company recently hired Branndon Stewart to join as COO. Following his football career at Texas A&M, Stewart founded and led OutboundEngine as CEO. In its first four years, his company grew to 10,000 SMB customers, ranking the company the 95th Fastest Growing Company in America by Inc. Magazine.
The recent funding round was led by General Catalyst with participation from Overline, as well as Sound Media Ventures.
Press Sports recently launched its Android app and web profiles to increase accessibility for its community and increase exposure for athletes. The company has also recently integrated video editing tools for users to improve the quality of their profiles on the app.
