Sporta raises £123k via Crowdcube to build AI-native sports bank

Sporta, an AI-native challenger bank targeting the sport, leisure and wellbeing sectors, has closed a crowdfunding round on Crowdcube, raising £122,923 from community investors.

The raise forms part of Sporta’s second seed round and was structured to allow individuals, clubs and early supporters to invest at smaller ticket sizes, extending participation beyond traditional angel and institutional investors. According to the company, many contributors were drawn from stakeholders engaged during its early market research phase.

Sporta is a purpose-built bank for the UK’s sports ecosystem, which it estimates as a £100 billion economy encompassing around 43 million participants, but one that lacks dedicated financial infrastructure. The company describes its approach as AI-native, with technology designed from inception to support the financial needs of organisations and individuals across sport, leisure and wellbeing.

Management framed the crowdfunding round less as a capital-raising exercise and more as a mechanism to build trust and community ownership ahead of its regulatory journey. Sporta completed its initial seed round in May 2025 and plans to submit its UK banking licence application and develop its minimum viable product during 2026, with a target for licence approval in the third quarter of that year.

“This round was never about scale, it was about inclusion,” said Andrew Smith, founder of Sporta. “From day one, people across sport told us they wanted to be part of what we’re building, even if they couldn’t meet traditional investment thresholds. Crowdcube let us honour that.”

Sporta said its valuation has increased by 75% since the initial seed close, citing progress in proprietary technology development, senior hiring and regulatory planning. Smith added that the company’s immediate priorities remain securing a banking licence, launching its first products and continuing to build its technology stack.

Looking ahead, Sporta expects to return to crowdfunding as part of a planned Series A round, once a banking licence has been secured. The company said future community participation would be subject to restrictions and aligned with a broader strategy of balancing institutional funding with accessible retail investment — a model previously adopted by several UK FinTech challengers in their early stages.