Israeli startup 90min, which has developed the world's most popular football fan platform, has today launched 12UP, an online platform for American sports lovers.
Like 90min, 12UP is focused on discovering authentic, actual and visual content of American sports professions inside and outside their arenas. The content is created and shared daily on the platform and in social networks by sports enthusiasts from across the globe.
The 12UP platform allows sports lovers to create stories, quizzes, image presentations, videos, rating scales and infinite multimedia content through which they tell the story from their personal angle, including behind-the-scenes content of the sports event. All this is done with no professional press teams, solely from the perspective of the fan. Since its quiet introduction a few months ago, the platform has gained over 4 million users on top of the 47 million users of 90min. To accommodate its growth and expansion, the company has launched Minute Media, an overarching brand for the two platforms, 90min and 12UP.
Last October, the Israeli startup founded by CEO Asaf Peled, Gili Beiman and Yuval Larom, raised $15 million, reaching total funding of $45 million. The financing round was led by major VC funds, including Battery Ventures, Gemini Ventures, North Base Media, Dawn Capital and ProSieben. The startup has offices in London, Tel Aviv, Manilla, and Singapore and has recently opened new offices in New York and Miami.
90min becomes the globe's leading football platform
The launch of the American website follows on 90min's evolution into one of the world's most successful soccer content platforms. With over 4,000 writers from all parts of the world, who generate some 15,000 stories per month in 10 languages, it is not surprising that the platform's user audience has grown from 7.5 million to some 47 million users during only 18 months. Over 110 million people visit the platform via social media every month, 70% of them under 25 years old.
The content management system built by the Israeli company into 12UP - the new American platform, allows users to create engaging stories and content which is then shared over and over again in the social networks. Keen understanding of the content consumption patterns of the Y Generation has motivated the company to develop platforms which are extremely shareable by mobile devices in terms of design, content and technology.
Peled said, "Our success hinges on matching the platform to the precise needs of the new content consumers. We are enabling a new sports experience for fans worldwide, which can be likened to bringing the pop culture to the world of sports. Thanks to our technology, the Y generation can create, publish and distribute content with its unique, unedited voice and share the love of the game with millions of users through the social networks. Having created this unique experience for the world of football, moving into American sports comes as natural evolution for the company."
He added, "Concurrently with traditional advertising on the pitch, TV and sponsorships, advertisers are looking for new ways to reach out to the fans directly and intimately. We are providing the brands with direct and segmented access to their target audience and have their content shared organically by the users, because they are genuinely interested in it. The advanced technology we developed maximizes exposure, allowing advertisers to pay only for qualified views and relevant exposures."
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on May 24, 2016
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