Heja: Stepping into the field of youth sports

As the summer has passed and which started off with a focus on the FIFA World Cup it feels exciting to continue working close with the team at Heja — the fast growing app for youth sports teams internationally — where Luminar made an investment in end June.

Heja has built a platform for sports teams to communicate, plan and interact in a smart way with the mobile interaction in focus. This brings the teams together and facilitates for coaches, players and parents alike.

Many sports team communication today relies on paper handouts, emails and text messages. It can be hard to keep track of email threads, find relevant information and get an overview — and for this Heja provides a solution.

Using Heja, all the team’s info and communication is gathered in one place, providing a fast, reliable and collaborative way for all those involved to find the information they need. The platform is tailored to the needs of sports teams, focusing on mobile and usability. Heja have built a great product, which is shown by its high engagement and high rates on App Store.

Part of what attracted us with Heja was the strong team behind the company. Founders Mikael Blix and Johan Berglund who have been operating Laget.se, a platform aimed at the Swedish league sports market, since 2004. The founders have a long background in team sports, understand the challenges involved and know the user base very well. They have also created a strong culture and team and has shown strong organic growth and product development. Laget.se has reached over 2 million registered users in the Swedish market.

In less than a year since launch, the founders new venture Heja has reached over 100,000 registered users. The majority are in the U.S. market, with the UK coming in second, and growing fast.

Sports is a global business which engage billions of people and with the average American family spending over $2000 yearly on sports according to Time magazine.

Communication for sports teams is a great digital entryway into the sports sector overall. With the infrastructure of Heja there is also a great potential for rolling out additional features. We at Luminar see great potential in Heja and its team to continue the expansion globally.