The change of name coincides with a major investment round that will fund further product development, a diversification of brand partners and the consolidation of recent expansion into new international markets.
MatchPint was founded in London in 2011 by school friends Leo MacLehose and Dominic Collingwood who were frustrated at not being able to find pubs showing particular sports matches on TV. After building the business in the UK, MatchPint entered Ireland in 2019 and Australia in 2020, acquired the French look-a-like business Allomatch in 2020, and launched a white label version of the platform with Dazn in Germany last year.
Worldwide partnerships
Today, the platform counts more than 13,500 venues worldwide as active customers and has been used by 12m sports fans to find pubs, bars and venues nearby showing sport, including almost 4m unique users in the past 12 months.
As the business has grown, Fanzo (formerly MatchPint) has developed partnerships with sports broadcasters and drinks brands including Guinness, Budweiser and Heineken in GB & Ireland, Canal+ in France, Foxtel and Carlton United Breweries in Australia, and Dazn in Germany.
Collingwood said: “There are three reasons for the change. First, MatchPint was a great name for a UK pub finder, but with global ambitions and a commitment to engaging sports fans around the world, we realised the MatchPint brand was not working hard enough for us anymore. We needed a new name to reflect a shift towards big occasions and special moments. Something simple and universal, something that sounds like how a last-minute winner feels.”
Strong resonation
He continued: “Second, we needed a name that included everyone that considers themselves a sports fan today. While MatchPint didn’t directly prohibit us from engaging a diverse audience, feedback and user testing showed Fanzo to be a name that resonated strongly with groups from a huge variety of sports, nationalities, genders and race.
“Third, the name Fanzo allows us to work with a wider variety of brand partners who have approached us in the past two years, those not traditionally associated with the on-trade but who see the value of pubs, bars and restaurants as the best places to enjoy sport outside the stadium.”
He added Fanzo had received “major financial backing” but its mission remains the same in a bid to “bring fans together to create unforgettable sporting moments”.
