Onefootball

Overview

Onefootball (OneFootball) is a Berlin-headquartered football media and technology platform. Its app and website provide live scores, statistics, news and video for more than 200 leagues in multiple languages. Wikipedia reports that the company was founded in 2008 in Bochum, Germany, by Lucas von Cranach, and CoinDesk reported that it had more than 100 million users when it raised 300 million dollars in April 2022.

Why this entity matters

Onefootball is one of Germany's best-known consumer-internet companies built around a global audience rather than the home market. Its 2022 funding round made it, according to Startuprad.io's unicorn tracking, Germany's 30th unicorn. The company is also a case study in how a media platform tried to turn a large free audience into new revenue lines, including a blockchain and digital-collectibles venture formed after the 2022 round, and in how strategies shift when market conditions change.

Company or institutional background

Onefootball is headquartered in Berlin and was founded in Bochum in 2008 by Lucas von Cranach, per Wikipedia. In 2020 it acquired Dugout, a digital media company, which according to Wikipedia added nine major football clubs, among them Arsenal, Barcelona, Bayern Munich, Chelsea, Juventus, Liverpool, Manchester City, Paris Saint-Germain and Real Madrid, as shareholders. On 28 April 2022 CoinDesk reported a 300 million dollar Series D led by Liberty City Ventures, with Dapper Labs, DAH Beteiligungen, Quiet Capital, RIT Capital Partners and Animoca Brands participating; the round also supported OneFootball Labs, a joint venture with Animoca Brands and Liberty City Ventures focused on blockchain-based fan experiences. Startuprad.io's monthly roundup for May 2022 and its unicorn analysis both record the round as lifting Onefootball to unicorn status in Germany. Wikipedia reports that Patrick Fischer became chief executive in March 2023, that von Cranach left the company in June 2023, and that the company has since refocused on what it calls a global football marketplace for content products and services, scaling back its earlier blockchain activity. A Handelsblatt headline from that period also reports the founder's departure; details of the leadership change are as reported and not independently verified here.

Role in the ecosystem

Onefootball belongs to the DACH consumer-internet and sports-media segment and to Berlin's group of globally operating app companies. It competes for fan attention with league, club and broadcaster apps, and it connects football rights holders, advertisers and fans, and its large free audience is the base for its partnership and advertising activity.

Selected relationships and affiliations

Public sources link Onefootball to Liberty City Ventures (lead investor, 2022), Dapper Labs and Animoca Brands (investors and partners in OneFootball Labs), and to the football clubs that became shareholders through the 2020 Dugout acquisition. Startuprad.io's records of Germany's unicorns place it alongside other Berlin unicorns of 2022 such as Taxfix. Shareholder lists change over time and are as reported by the cited outlets.

Startuprad.io relevance

Startuprad.io has not published a dedicated Onefootball profile. The company appears in two archive pieces: the May 2022 edition of the monthly DACH startup roundup, which reports the 300 million dollar round and the company's unicorn status, and an analysis of Germany's 30 official unicorns, which lists Onefootball as unicorn number 30. Coverage is therefore incidental to broader ecosystem reporting rather than a company feature.

Public source context

This record draws on CoinDesk's report of 28 April 2022 on the funding round, the English Wikipedia article on OneFootball, a Handelsblatt headline on the leadership change, and Startuprad.io's own archive coverage listed below. Funding amounts, user numbers and leadership dates are as reported by those sources and have not been independently verified against company filings. Current valuation and revenue were not found in public sources and are not stated.

Startuprad.io coverage

Germany has now 30 official Unicorns: But is that all there is?
Published: 15 March 2026
Last updated: 20 September 2026
Coverage type: Analysis
https://www.startuprad.io/post/germany-has-now-30-official-unicorns-but-is-that-all-there-is

This Month in German, Swiss, and Austrian (GSA) Startups — May 2022
Published: 15 March 2026
Last updated: 20 September 2026
Coverage type: News
https://www.startuprad.io/post/this-month-in-german-swiss-and-austrian-gsa-startups-may-2022

Need deeper entity intelligence?
→ https://www.startuprad.io/become-a-partner

Following how consumer platforms and sports media scale across borders? Entrepreneurs Vault members get the deeper layer on the Onefootball unicorn round, the pivot from blockchain experiments to a content marketplace and what DACH founders can learn from it.
▶ YouTube Membership: https://www.youtube.com/startupradio/join
✉️ Substack: https://startupradio.substack.com/subscribe

About Startuprad.io

Startuprad.io is a European B2B media, data and intelligence platform. It provides structured entity and ecosystem data, source-backed research, datasets and AI/training-data solutions, as well as strategic visibility and access to a professional European audience of founders, investors, executives and B2B decision-makers.

Organizations use Startuprad.io for intelligence and research, structured data and AI applications, executive and company positioning, and trusted B2B reach across Europe.

Canonical record: https://www.startuprad.io/entities/onefootball .