Marketplace veteran Cecil Hetherington deepens Pitchbooking stake after £25m bookings
This article covers Pitchbooking, a Belfast sports-tech firm, and an investment milestone as entrepreneur Cecil Hetherington increased his stake to become the largest individual shareholder outside the founding team. The move aims to support the company’s expansion across the UK and Ireland and strengthen its sports facilities platform, which processed more than £25m in bookings in the past year and is used by clubs, national associations and local authorities.
Cecil Hetherington, a Northern Ireland digital entrepreneur behind Used Cars NI and PropertyPal, has increased his investment in Belfast-founded sports technology company Pitchbooking and is now the largest individual shareholder outside the founding team. The move underscores confidence in Pitchbooking’s role as a vertical marketplace and operations platform for sports facilities at a time when the sector is undergoing rapid digital change.
Why it matters
Pitchbooking, founded in 2018 by Shea O’Hagan, Fearghal Campbell and Chris McCann, has positioned itself as a two-sided marketplace and operating system for sports facilities. The company says it processed more than £25 million in bookings over the past year and works with national bodies and club foundations, signalling that facility operators are adopting software to coordinate bookings, access and payments.
The wider significance is twofold. First, the deal highlights continued investor interest in niche marketplaces and vertical SaaS in the UK and Ireland. Second, sports facilities remain under-digitised compared with other sectors, creating a sizeable addressable market domestically and for export.
Inside the product
What began as a basic facility-booking tool has grown into a broader operations platform. Pitchbooking supports bookings across football, rugby, cricket, hockey, tennis and fitness and offers features beyond scheduling: events, memberships, leagues, access control, smart locks, automated floodlighting, point of sale and card terminals, plus franchising and white-label options.
Clients include the Irish Football Association, Nottingham Forest Foundation and West Ham United Foundation, Soccer 5 USA and a number of UK city councils. These partners illustrate the platform’s reach across governing bodies, professional-club community outreach and municipal leisure services.
Who’s backing the round
Cecil Hetherington’s new investment increases his stake in Pitchbooking and makes him the largest individual shareholder outside the founding team. Hetherington has a track record in two-sided marketplaces through Used Cars NI and PropertyPal, both Northern Ireland category leaders. His connection to Pitchbooking dates back to a 2019 funding round that involved Aurient Ltd, Techstart Ventures and Co-Fund NI, managed by Clarendon Fund Managers.
The company has not disclosed a headline valuation or the exact size of Hetherington’s latest commitment. The announcement frames the move as a deepening of his existing support and a vote of confidence in the business model and growth strategy.
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In the announcement, Shea O’Hagan, CEO of Pitchbooking, said:
Cecil understands two-sided marketplaces better than anyone in the UK and Ireland. His success with Used Cars NI and PropertyPal shows a rare instinct for building and scaling high-performing platforms that connect supply and demand at scale. He’s built category leaders before, and we’re proud to have him deepen his involvement in Pitchbooking. His backing is a strong signal of confidence in our long-term vision to make Pitchbooking the go-to platform for sports facilities.
In the announcement, Cecil Hetherington, investor, said:
Pitchbooking has all the ingredients of a global category leader - a scalable model, proven traction, and a market that’s only beginning to digitise. With tens of thousands of facilities across the UK alone and millions globally, the scale of opportunity is enormous. The company is well placed to define how sports facilities operate in the years ahead.
Founder perspective
The founders have shifted the business from a booking app to a broader platform for operations, reflecting a move common among vertical SaaS startups that seek to capture more of the customer lifecycle. Pitchbooking’s client mix — federations, club foundations and councils — suggests the product is being used across public and private operators with differing procurement paths.
The bigger picture
Hetherington’s increased stake is consistent with an era of targeted bets on marketplaces that can scale supply and demand simultaneously. For the UK and Ireland, the deal underlines how regional founders and investors are building category-specialist platforms that can compete beyond local markets. As sports facilities continue to digitise, companies such as Pitchbooking may become part of broader efforts to modernise community sport infrastructure and its commercial operations across Europe.
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