ATHLETE-LED. FOUNDER-FOCUSED.
Capital isabundant.Access is not.
A small cheque. A much bigger advantage.
We back exceptional technical founders, then put the worlds of sport, entertainment and enterprise to work around them.
Step inside ↗01 / BUILT ON RELATIONSHIPS
We started
with people.
Then a fund.
As former athletes, Fergus and Ruari Bell saw extraordinary people building lives beyond sport. Helping that community led to 4CAST, and then The Players Fund in 2023.
Athletes’ relationships reach into boardrooms, engineering teams and investment firms. We built a firm to make that reach useful to founders.
A community built through years of shared experience. Athletes, artists, founders and operators who can contribute in different ways.
02 / YOUR ADVANTAGE
What moves
you forward?
Tell us the priority. We work out who can help, make the ask specific, and follow through.
The right person. A real business need.
Warm introductions to relevant buyers in clubs, their sponsors, our portfolio and the wider enterprise network. We start with your use case and find the team that owns the problem.
03 / LOOK BEYOND THE BADGE
One club.
Many doors.
A sports organisation is also a technology buyer, a retail business, a media platform and a global commercial network.
Then there are its sponsors. Their customers, suppliers and partners. The opportunity extends far beyond sport.
Hotspur Labs · Como Ventures · Juventus Forward
Club venture programmes and innovation partnerships. Each has its own remit and commercial terms.04 / THE WORK, IN REAL LIFE
Good people.
Put together.
From a room full of builders to a conversation at the NFL. The setting changes. The intention stays the same.
BUILDERS + FRONTIER AI
Data on the Lake
55 builders. 12 teams. A 24-hour hackathon with Google DeepMind and Como 1907, built around real club challenges.
Explore the story ↗
05 / ONE FIRM BEHIND YOU
Small on your
cap table.
In your corner.
Our investment starts a relationship. Useful work builds trust. Each collaboration strengthens the network for the next founder.
A clear role on your cap table.
Focused early-stage cheques that complement your lead investor, with practical support beyond the financing.
06 / YOUR NEXT MOVE
Tell us what
you’re building.
And the one thing that would make the biggest difference right now.
We’d love to hear the story and see where we can be useful.
Fergus & the Players Fund team
Or just say hello ↗Visit our main website ↗