London-based startup Squawka has announced a significant investment and partnership with global sports group Doyen to speed up business operations, increase international expansion and enhance platform development as they seek to provide football fans with the ideal digital companion to follow their teams.

Originally launched as a second screen powered by live data visualisations and social media for the 2012 European Football Championships; Squawka has now expanded into a comprehensive 24/7 experience for fans of the world’s biggest sport.

Squawka provides fans with latest news, stats, game analysis, social media, live blogs, and images as well as cutting edge real-time data comparison tools to help fans understand and enjoy the game as a second screen experience.

Squawka receives nearly 2 million monthly unique users across both its www.Squawka.com site and the Squawka Football App on iOS with average dwell times of 39 minutes during live English Premier League games. The app is also generating huge engagement figures with over 10 screens viewed per user session.

Existing Squawka investors include Forward Internet Group Founder Neil Hutchinson, brand guru Sir John Hegarty and Spark Ventures chairman Tom Teichman.  In addition, Squawka will be joined by one of the most experienced teams in sport at Doyen.

Doyen Global was launched in April 2013 by Simon Oliveira and Matthew Kay, two former Senior Executives from Creative Artists Agency and XIX Entertainment.  Their first move was an image rights partnership with Brazilian sensation Neymar.

Since then the company has moved at a fast pace building a diverse portfolio from Exec Producing Box Office hit, ‘Class of 92’ to partnering with tennis legend, Boris Becker, Spanish football legend Xavi amongst others.  This week they announced a partnership with Manchester United teen prodigy Adnan Januzaj.

Simon Oliveira remains a key strategist in David Beckham’s team managing the icon’s communications strategy for ten years. At XIX he also worked across the management of Lewis Hamilton and Andy Murray. Matthew Kay is one of the leading professionals in sports marketing who, whilst at CAA, managed the commercial strategy of global sports stars Cristiano Ronaldo and Jose Mourinho amongst others.  Prior to that, Kay was Commercial Director of Football at IMG. Both Oliveira and Kay will be joining the Squawka board.

“At a time when general VC interest in the sports sector has been significant, we have been working hard to bring together a team of like-minded strategic investors that can help propel Squawka to become a household name for football fans. By focusing on the business metrics alongside the incredible strategic value of the board we feel we have a real shot of becoming the de facto multi-device companion for football fans globally.  We are excited to work with Doyen going forward.” – Squawka CEO and co-founder Sanjit Atwal