Recent changes to NCAA regulations for name and image likeness opened up the floodgates for student-athletes to be compensated for the first time. Athletes and sports programs are now more concentrated on building monetizable brands and social media is a key distribution channel for this growth. The wave of interest hasn’t just been focused on collegiate athletics, as interest has trickled down to youth and high school sports as both athletes and programs are poised to develop brand awareness to facilitate future recruitment efforts. Gipper is a graphic creation platform for sports organizations to build their social presence with professional-looking imagery. At its core, it’s a user-friendly design tool that requires no specialized knowledge that creates robust graphics with motion graphics in seconds that are tailored for engagement on social platforms while also handling posting. Gipper is mobile-optimized, allowing social media coordinators to post timely updates during live events. The company offers a number of tiers sold on an annual basis that are catered to both athletes themselves as well as schools.
AlleyWatch caught up with Gipper Founder and CEO Matthew Glick to learn more about the business, the company’s strategic plans, latest round of funding, which brings the total funding raised to $12.1M, and much, much more…
Who were your investors and how much did you raise?
We raised $8.6M Series A. The round was led by Telescope Partners, with follow-on investment from TIA Ventures
Tell us about the product or service that Gipper offers.
Gipper is a content creation platform that empowers sub-professional sports organizations to create professional-looking sports graphics for use on social media, websites, and signage. Our platform allows sports organizations to connect with their communities in a way that increases engagement, fosters brand affinity, fuels recruitment efforts, and drives sponsorship opportunities.
What inspired the start of Gipper?
While playing soccer at Colgate University, I recognized the opportunity for amateur sports organizations to use social media to better promote their programs and athletes. I also saw first-hand how the vast majority of these organizations lacked sufficient time and design/marketing resources. I knew there was a massive opportunity to build software that would help them create social media content like the pros, but without needing any design or marketing experience.
How is Gipper different?
Designed for the non-designer, Gipper revolutionizes content creation with a streamlined editing experience, making it possible to create and post in seconds, faster than any other design tool on the market.
What market does Gipper target and how big is it?
Gipper targets sub-professional sports organizations across club/youth sports, K-12, and collegiate athletics. Youth sports alone is a $19B, and growing, market.
What’s your business model?
SaaS (annual subscriptions).
How are you preparing for a potential economic slowdown?
We’ve always been a capital-efficient business and have never had a “growth at all costs” mentality so there hasn’t been a total transformation in how we approach business building at Gipper given the macro-economic environment. Of course, we are mindful of expenses and continuing to align the team around revenue. A large portion of our business also operates in a space (education) that is somewhat recession-proof: schools typically don’t go out of business and have fixed budgets. Of course, budgets can/will tighten, but we’ve shown very strong retention, even in periods like the height of COVID, when school budgets were impacted and sports weren’t even taking place. So, despite the realities of the larger economic environment, we feel very excited about the position we are in. We are the industry-leading content creation platform, and we’re in a great position to continue to invest in better serving our customers and building an industry-defining business.
What was the funding process like?
Raising capital in today’s environment is not easy, but we’ve done a great job building investor relationships and keeping folks updated with Gipper’s growth. So, we had a lot of prospective investors who were already well-educated about the team and business – which makes fundraising easier. Also, our traction in the market helped generate a significant amount of proactive interest – including from Telescope Partners, who had approached us a year before closing the round. With Telescope specifically, that gave us both the time to build a relationship and trust.
What are the biggest challenges that you faced while raising capital?
Identifying the right-fit partner. We have a great relationship with the folks on our cap table, and in particular TIA Ventures (led our seed round of funding) – who have been terrific early-stage investors/partners. When raising the A, we wanted to make sure we weren’t just optimizing around capital, but importantly the people we would be bringing into Gipper as long-term partners. Raising capital is very much like getting married, so it was a challenge to make sure we did the diligence on our end to move forward with folks that were the right fit, philosophically, for what we are building here. Thankfully, we had known Telescope for a while – which helped in our decision-making process.
What factors about your business led your investors to write the check?
Team, traction, and the larger market opportunity. We’ve shown we are a group that consistently executes at a high level, which gives investors confidence as we continue to scale.
What are the milestones you plan to achieve in the next six months?
We’ve got some exciting milestones around customer/revenue growth and new product initiatives.
What advice can you offer companies in New York that do not have a fresh injection of capital in the bank?
Traction cures all. Focus on finding ways to drive revenue via paying customers. You can’t be reliant on outside funding, particularly in today’s environment, so the best way (and most rewarding) is to fund your business through customer dollars. And the more you do that, the more appealing you will be to potential investors (and the less reliant you will be on them!).
Traction cures all. Focus on finding ways to drive revenue via paying customers. You can’t be reliant on outside funding, particularly in today’s environment, so the best way (and most rewarding) is to fund your business through customer dollars. And the more you do that, the more appealing you will be to potential investors (and the less reliant you will be on them!).
Where do you see the company going now over the near term?
We’re going to continue focusing on serving our customers – and ensuring we are delivering world-class customer experiences.
What’s your favorite restaurant in the city?
Impossible question!!! But, if I had to say, right now it’s Misirizzi. Their pastas are great.
