St. Petersburg-based startup Spontivly realized its potential in the sports world after Mark Cuban's team conducted due diligence on the company.
The community manager of Cuban's basketball team, the Dallas Mavericks, pointed out how sports companies must manage fan responses and ticketing. The company has embraced the market and partnered with teams like St. Pete's soccer team, the Tampa Bay Rowdies. It's a significant moment for the company and the region, said Marissa Huggins, the COO and co-founder of Spontivly.
"We're expanding into these huge areas of tech," Huggins said. "We're a relatively small area in the tech space, and we're tackling huge problems. We tackle a lot of health tech problems, and now we're actually starting to tackle big data in [artificial intelligence]. It's a notable use case that this has made its way to the front, and it goes to show how diverse our founder's set is in the Tampa Bay region."
The deal will allow the sports team to quantify the exposure and engagement driven by sponsors, according to a release.
Besides the boost in partnerships, the move propels the company closer to a Series A, Huggins said.
In October 2023, Spontivly closed a pre-series round of an undisclosed amount. Huggins said the company isn't focused on where the capital comes from but plans to bring in a strategic lead investor. There isn't an exact timeline, but the company is looking to build the round in the coming year.
The company also recently expanded into the Miami market by participating in the Florida tech conference eMerge of the Americas and was accepted into nonprofit Endeavor Miami's startup program. It's part of an effort to grow its presence statewide while remaining focused on Tampa Bay.
"We want to start building that sense of community at the state level, not just one city versus another," Huggins said.
