Lucas von Cranach, the founder and chief executive of Onefootball, told the Tech Crunch Disrupt Berlin conference earlier this month that the company has raised funds from investors including Adidas. Onefootball is a popular football app that boasts 25 million fans in 200 countries. Tech Crunch reports that Onefootball previously raised $20 million, and it transpired at the conference in Berlin that it went through two more rounds of funding. The Adidas Group confirmed the investment, but added that it has been invested in Onefootball since 2015 through its corporate venture arm, Hydra Ventures, which is meant to explore innovative and disruptive market opportunities in the apparel, footwear and sports industry. The company was probably drawn by the potential to engage with Onefootball's huge fan base: The Tech Crunch conference heard that 90 percent of Onefootball's users have opted in to receive push notifications and they very regularly return to the app – some of them 40 to 50 times per month. Von Cranach said that Onefootball has no intention of building a merchandise business.

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