Homefans raise £100,000
THEY say that modern day sports fans are looking for experiences beyond the 90 minutes on the pitch.
And since setting up Homefans, a football travel experience brand, cofounders Luke Verbeek and Daniel Velásquez have raised more than £100,000 to provide them.
The pair set up the business ten months ago from Manchester after becoming frustrated with football travel and have already made more than £40,000 and attracted around 250 fans.
Colombian Daniel, who has two master degrees, said: “We believe we are filling the gap for millennial fans who are increasingly looking for travel experiences but cannot find them anywhere in the market.
“We step in by designing authentic and accessible trips to help fans tick off their football bucket list.”
This involves everything from meeting locals, going to pub nights and even playing football at the club’s official training ground.
After taking hundreds of travelers from six different countries across Europe, Homefans decided to launch an equity crowdfunding campaign on Crowdcube to boost their growth. They raised £111,590 in 30 days.
Law graduate Luke, aged 26, said: “We’re not a standard football package provider, we put a lot of effort in to creating unique experiences and bring like-minded fans together to experience football the local way.”
Last year, 284m 18-35 year old went on a trip and approximately 75% of millennials would rather buy an experi- ence than a product.
Daniel adds: “Our research suggests that traditional travel operators insist on either offering a basic standard product, the match breaks; or an expensive one, the corporate hospitality.
With the investment in place, the team plan to increase the marketing spent, launch new products, on-board new team members and expand to other geographies.
“We have a handful of new experiences in places like a trip to Argentina or long football weekends on the road across different destinations. The crowdfunding campaign will help us launch them, scale up and, especially, involve the community to become a part of this journey” says Daniel.