Top 20 Sports Companies & Startups (2024)
With advances in technology, the shift to streaming, and the legalization of sports betting, interest in sports has never been higher.
The global sports market was valued at $512.1 billion in 2023. That number is expected to grow to $623.6 billion in 2027 at a 5.0% CAGR.
The NFL leads the way as the most lucrative sports league in the US, generating $18 billion in revenue in the 2022 season. NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell estimates the NFL's revenue to grow to $25 billion by 2027.
Each year, new companies are joining this fast-growing sector. We’ve compiled 25 of the fastest-growing sports startups to watch in 2024.
1. DUPR
5-year search growth: 2,275%
Search growth status: Exploding
Year founded: 2021
Location: Austin, Texas
Funding: $8M (Seed Round)
What they do: DUPR is the Dynamic Universal Pickleball Rating, a global rating system for pickleball players of all levels. This system analyzes match results to accurately measure a player's skill level, regardless of age, gender, or location. Players use it to find similar opponents, track development, and seed tournaments in competitive events. In January 2024, the startup raised $8M in seed funding to expand operations and grow its 500,000 user base.
2. WHOOP
5-year search growth: 242%
Search growth status: Regular
Year founded: 2012
Location: Boston, Massachusetts
Funding: $404.3M (Series F)
What they do: WHOOP is a sports tech company that makes wearable fitness trackers to monitor calories burned, sleep, strain, recovery, and stress 24/7. The company also provides personalized coaching to enhance sports and fitness performance. After WHOOP's latest funding round, they became the world's most valuable standalone wearables company.
3. Playtomic
5-year search growth: 1,820%
Search growth status: Exploding
Year founded: 2017
Location: Madrid, Spain
Funding: $75.3M (Series C)
What they do: Playtomic is a court booking and social app for racket sports players. The platform facilitates booking courts, organizing matches, tracking progress, and participating in leagues and tournaments. Currently, Playtomic is used by more than 3.1 million players in 49+ countries.
4. Hoka
5-year search growth: 426%
Search growth status: Exploding
Year founded: 2009
Location: Annecy, France
Funding: Undisclosed
What they do: Hoka is a sportswear brand that sells cushioned shoes for long-distance running. Unlike traditional running shoe brands, Hoka offers maximal shoes with larger, more cushioned soles for stability, breathable materials, and a durable design. In 2023, Hoka hit a quarterly sales record and expects to reach $3.98 billion in fiscal year 2024.
5. Coospo
5-year search growth: 933%
Search growth status: Exploding
Year founded: 2014
Location: Shenzhen, China
Funding: Undisclosed
What they do: Coospo is a sports tech and fitness training company that makes wearable fitness devices, bike computers, heart rate monitors, and cadence sensors. Their products are used for cycling and bike riding to help riders achieve their fitness goals by monitoring exercise data accurately. Over 1 million customers have used Coospo products for daily exercise tracking.
6. Shot Quality
5-year search growth: 96%
Search growth status: Regular
Year founded: 2020
Location: Larchmont, New York
Funding: $3.2M (Seed Round)
What they do: Shot Quality is a basketball analytics startup that grades a team's performance based on their in-game shot selection. The platform uses predictive analytics to grade each shot based on the chance of it going in on a 0-100 percent scale and then multiplying the grade by the shot type to generate the ShotQuality value.
Shot Quality's AI models calculate a shot grade using 100 different variables like shot type, shooter ability, defender distance, etc. After the game, the algorithm generates a post-game report with an “expected score” that can highlight the amount of variance and luck in a game. More than 60 basketball schools, including Stanford, use Shot Quality to improve on-court decisions.
7. Courtsite
5-year search growth: 5,500%
Search growth status: Regular
Year founded: 2016
Location: Petaling Jaya, Malaysia
Funding: Undisclosed
What they do: Courtsite is a sports facility management and booking platform. The company helps sports players find local facilities, book reservations, and make digital payments. Meanwhile, businesses can use the software to manage their facility remotely and reduce the risk of no-shows and double bookings. Today, Courtsite serves over 200,000 players across more than 1,000 sports spaces.
8. FanHub
5-year search growth: 4,567%
Search growth status: Regular
Year founded: 2021
Location: Bristol, United Kingdom
Funding: $3M (Pre-Seed)
What they do: FanHub is a sports rewards app for football fans. Users can check in at games, predict lineups, and stay updated with the latest team news all in one place. The startup aims to become the "Strava for sports fans" by offering loyalty points that can be redeemed for real rewards.
Since FanHub launched, fans have claimed over 50,000 pints of beer, 3,500+ tickets and 2,500+ items of FanHub merchandise. The app has also generated over 100,000 total downloads.
9. Picsil
5-year search growth: 243%
Search growth status: Exploding
Year founded: 2011
Location: Navarra, Spain
Funding: Undisclosed
What they do: Picsil is a sports equipment company specializing in professional gear for cross-training and fitness. They offer wristbands, straps, grips, and weighted vests to enhance workouts like pull-ups, muscle-ups, and chest-to-bar exercises. The brand caters to CrossFit athletes and partners with some of the top names in CrossFit, including Roman Khrennikov and Lazar Djukic.
10. Ultrahuman
5-year search growth: 99x+
Search growth status: Exploding
Year founded: 2019
Location: Bangalore, India
Funding: $25.1M (Venture Round)
What they do: Ultrahuman manufactures personal health and smart wearables for fitness and sports tracking. Their flagship product, the Ultrahuman M1, is a glucose monitoring device that tracks glucose levels in real-time using Abbott's Freestyle Libre CGM Sensor. The startup also makes compact smart rings that monitor sleep, movement, and recovery. Ultrahuman expects to cross $50 million in ARR by the end of March 2024.
11. Easycancha
5-year search growth: 313%
Search growth status: Regular
Year founded: 2016
Location: Santiago, Chile
Funding: $1.1M (Equity Crowdfunding)
What they do: Easycancha is a software platform that allows customers to schedule and pay for sports facility reservations online. Users can use the platform to find and reserve courts for various sports like tennis, football, basketball, soccer, and racquetball. The company currently operates in eight countries and processes over 400,000 reservations per month.
12. Fiture
5-year search growth: 46%
Search growth status: Regular
Year founded: 2019
Location: Chengdu, China
Funding: $392.3M (Secondary Market)
What they do: Fiture is a sports tech company that offers interactive fitness mirrors and workout classes. This smart home fitness mirror is equipped with Motion Engine Technology to provide real-time AI feedback and an immersive workout experience.
13. Autograph
5-year search growth: 5718%
Search growth status: Exploding
Year founded: 2021
Location: Santa Monica, California
Funding: $208.1M (Series B)
What they do: Autograph is a sports NFT platform that connects fans and celebrities to create one-of-a-kind autographed tokens. Co-founded by Tom Brady, the company sold over 100,000 NFTs while partnering with some of the biggest names in sports (Wayne Gretzky, Tony Hawk, Derek Jeter, Naomi Osaka, and Simone Biles).
14. Oddsjam
5-year search growth: 6,400%
Search growth status: Regular
Year founded: 2020
Location: New York, New York
Funding: Undisclosed
What they do: Oddsjam is a sports betting company that provides real-time odds comparison, live line movements and various betting tools for major sports leagues. Users get access to real-time data from 100+ online sportsbooks and accurate lines for 10,000+ betting markets. Their Arbitrage Betting tool is currently used by more than 20,000 bettors.
15. DAZN
5-year search growth: 71%
Search growth status: Regular
Year founded: 2016
Location: London, England
Funding: $8.3B (Venture Series)
What they do: DAZN is a live and on-demand sports streaming startup. Currently, the company broadcasts live sports like boxing, MMA, cricket, and soccer in 200+ countries worldwide. According to December 2023 reports, the startup is looking to raise $1B in additional funding to help with global expansion.
16. RankedIn
5-year search growth: 1,150%
Search growth status: Exploding
Year founded: 2015
Location: Lysaker, Norway
Funding: Undisclosed
What they do: RankedIn is a platform that helps users organize, manage, and promote their sports events, leagues, and clubs. Most RankedIn customers use the platform for paddle sports like tennis, badminton, racquetball, and table tennis. The startup has supported more than 120,000 players, 160,000 tournaments, and 2 million total matches.
17. TickPick
5-year search growth: 151%
Search growth status: Exploding
Year founded: 2011
Location: New York, New York
Funding: $40M (Private Equity)
What they do: TickPick is an online marketplace for sporting event tickets. Unlike other ticketing platforms, TickPick does not add any hidden fees to the ticket price at checkout. TickPick also offers a bid platform for consumers to negotiate with multiple sellers. Since the company launched, they have saved customers over $100 million in service fees.
18. Tonal
5-year search growth: 77%
Search growth status: Regular
Year founded: 2015
Location: San Francisco, California
Funding: $615M (Venture Round)
What they do: Tonal is a smart home gym system that uses patented resistance digital weight for strength training. Users get up to 200 pounds of adaptive weight resistance, full-body workouts with adjustable arms, custom programs tailored to individual goals, and progress tracking to monitor performance. In 2023, Tonal saw 175,000 unique users lift 66 billion pounds in 10+ million workouts.
19. GymRats
5-year search growth: 3,233%
Search growth status: Exploding
Year founded: 2019
Location: Chester Springs, Pennsylvania
Funding: Undisclosed
What they do: GymRats is a platform that offers fitness groups for individuals to start challenges or accountability groups. In the app, users can track and share activities, and engage in healthy competition. Since launching, the app has seen over 100,000 users participate in more than 50,000 challenges.
20. Satisfy
5-year search growth: 426%
Search growth status: Exploding
Year founded: 2015
Location: Paris, France
Funding: Undisclosed
What they do: Satisfy is a running brand that makes high-performance gear from custom-developed fabrics. Some of the apparel items offered by Satisfy include technical running shorts, ultralight t-shirts, base layers, leggings, and more. The startup’s apparel is designed with ease of movement in mind to allow runners to feel their best while in motion.
Conclusion
That concludes our list of the fastest-growing sports startups for 2024.
After declining for the first time during the COVID pandemic, sports startups continue to innovate and change the way we integrate sports and fitness into our daily lives.
From sports betting analytics companies to athletic gear brands, these startups are excellent examples of what to keep an eye on in the industry in 2024 and beyond.
