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 entrepreneur known for building two-sided marketplaces, has increased his stake in Belfast sports‑tech firm Pitchbooking and is now the largest individual shareholder outside the founding team. The move strengthens a founder-led business that processed more than £25m in bookings in the past year and supplies software to national associations, professional club foundations and local authorities — signalling renewed investor interest in marketplace-style sports infrastructure.
Why it matters
Hetherington’s return to Pitchbooking is significant because his previous businesses — Used Cars NI and PropertyPal — successfully built local category leadership against UK incumbents. That experience with two-sided marketplaces matters for sports tech, where platforms must balance supply (facilities) and demand (teams, coaches, community users) while integrating payments and operations.
What Pitchbooking actually does
Founded in 2018 by Shea O’Hagan, Fearghal Campbell and Chris McCann, Pitchbooking started as a facility‑booking tool and has expanded into a broader operating system for sports venues. The platform supports pitch bookings alongside events, memberships, leagues, access control, smart locks, automated floodlighting, point‑of‑sale and card terminals, plus franchising and white‑label deployments.
Pitchbooking describes itself as sports‑agnostic and lists customers including the Irish Football Association, Nottingham Forest and West Ham United Foundations, Soccer 5 USA and multiple UK city councils — clients that illustrate the product’s use across community, grassroots and professional‑adjacent organisations.
Who backed it — and what Hetherington’s involvement means
Hetherington’s involvement with Pitchbooking dates back to 2019, when the company raised investment from Aurient Ltd as part of a round that also included Techstart Ventures and Co‑Fund NI, managed by Clarendon Fund Managers. His latest capital injection has made him the largest individual shareholder outside the founding team and signals a deeper personal commitment to the company’s growth plan.
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 and entrepreneur, 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.”
If you're researching potential backers in this space:
- Explore our list of healthtech venture capital firms in the UK
- Browse our directory of healthtech angel investors in the UK
How the funding will be used
Pitchbooking says the investment will accelerate expansion across the UK and Ireland and support further development of its product suite to meet the operational needs of sports organisations worldwide. For a company that handled more than £25m in bookings in the last year, the emphasis is on scaling sales and integrations rather than early‑stage product discovery.
How it fits the market
The sports facilities market is large and fragmented: municipal councils, private leisure operators, community clubs and commercial venues all run different systems and payment flows. A single platform that can manage bookings, memberships, access control and payments reduces complexity for operators and creates network effects — the same structural advantages Hetherington exploited in automotive and property marketplaces.
The wider picture for UK tech and regional scale-ups
Hetherington’s renewed bet on a Belfast‑based startup underscores two broader trends in the UK and Irish ecosystem: regionally rooted founders scaling sector‑specific SaaS, and experienced marketplace operators redeploying their expertise into adjacent verticals. If Pitchbooking can translate its traction into broader institutional adoption, it will offer a case study in how local tech clusters can export specialised infrastructure products to global audiences.
They've invested in Pitchbooking
Get to know these healthtech investors
Click here for a full list of 7,233+ startup investors in the UK