Latvia’s Athlete-Driven Sports Platform Tournated Poised to Expand Across the Americas and Asia with USD 750K Funding

• Jūrmala-based Tournated raised USD 750K from Scandiweb, Shijiazhuang Chaofeng Sports, and an undisclosed padel organization
• The founding team leverages pro sports and tech expertise to build the sports management platform
• The platform already supports clubs, federations, and tournaments across 50+ countries with scalable tools
• The new funding supports Tournated’s global expansion, infrastructure enhancement, and the development of new club features

This September, Tournated—the Latvian all-in-one white-label software provider for sports organizations—secured an investment of USD 750K. The investment comes from Scandiweb, Shijiazhuang Chaofeng Sports, and an undisclosed international padel organization.

From Sports to Tech Vision

Tournated’s primary founder Nikita Ribakovs (CEO) bridges pro sports and technology. A Latvian national champion in seven racket sports, he has represented this country internationally in tennis, pickleball, and beach tennis. From the early days of beach tennis, he played a key role in developing the sport nationally and later contributed to its global growth as a member of the ITF Beach Tennis Players’ Council.

Academically, Mr Ribakovs holds a degree in Business IT and has apparently been building startups since the age of 14. Professionally, he led partnerships and integrations at fast-scaling Web3 companies and served as a Techstars Web3 mentor, advising other founders. This personal experience motivated him to create Tournated: as both an athlete and organizer, he saw clubs using a handful of digital tools but found that governing bodies lacked affordable, customizable solutions to manage and scale their sports digitally.

The idea of Tournated was co-created with his wife, Julia Chubarova (CMO), a world champion in beach tennis. They were later joined by Mihails Samoilovs (COO), a European U22 beach volleyball champion, and Mr Ribakovs’ brother Roberts (CTO), expert in technology and e-sports. Together, this athlete-driven, tech-savvy founding team continues to shape Tournated’s vision.

Rapid Real-Word Testing and Growth

The team began development in May 2023 and delivered Tournated’s first raw MVP in January 2024, which was tested with a close circle of sports organizations and federations. By August 2024, beta was launched, and in October, just before a major event in India with 800 participants, the product was stable enough to operate in real competition settings.

‘From there, growth accelerated quickly. We reached 50,000 competitive athletes actively using our solutions and expanded across 50+ countries with governing bodies. This scale exposed natural challenges around performance, scalability, and UX. Since June 2025, our primary focus has been addressing these areas – ensuring by the end of the year we deliver a platform that is scalable, intuitive, and fully equipped for organizations of any size, supporting all major tournament formats and core club/academy management features,’ Mr Ribakovs recalls.

Sport-Agnostic Platform and Global Reach

Briefly put, what Tournated built is a sports management platform that provides governing bodies, clubs, and organizers with customizable digital tools to manage tournaments, leagues, memberships, and rankings. It bridges the gap between athletes and organizations by simplifying administration, enhancing visibility, and enabling growth for both mainstream and emerging sports. Designed by athletes for athletes, the platform combines user-friendly technology with deep industry insight to build scalable infrastructure for global sports development.

‘Tournated was designed from day one to be sport-agnostic, meaning the core logic – memberships, events, rankings, and payments – remains the same while sport-specific rules and formats are added as needed. For now our focus is on racket sports, ball sports, chess, and other individual or pair disciplines across all geographies,’ Mr Ribakovs adds.

Market Entry and Regional Differences

The platform is capable of supporting team sports, but they are outside of Tournated’s priority for now. The current strategy is to enter markets with no comparable solutions, where Tournated can capture substantial market share quickly before expanding further into already competitive verticals (e.g. e-sports).

Expanding across new regions, the primary differences the team has to tackle are about user experience expectations.

‘While Europe and North America are relatively similar, Asia and Africa are quite different – and even individual countries within Asia have distinct UX habits and demands. Payment processing systems also vary widely, requiring different integrations and approaches. Our strategy is to adapt closely to the needs of major clients in each region, while keeping our long-term vision of global coverage,’ Mr Ribakovs explains.

At the same time, Tournated prioritizes expansion into markets where infrastructure is already established and the onboarding cost of a new client is minimal. Such a phased approach allows the platform to grow quickly, learn from diverse regions, and eventually be everywhere.

The Fundraising Journey

On the fundraising side, the team began outreach in August 2024, alongside the beta launch, but quickly realized it was too early as VCs showed next to no interest. This changed in October as the team traveled to Asia, signed Tournated’s first substantial customers and secured its first strategic investor — a leading Asian sports manufacturing company with a strong focus on hosting large-scale events.

Mr Ribakovs shares that the startup’s round of investment became heavily oversubscribed within the following months, and the team finalized the selection of our partners by summer 2025:

• Shijiazhuang Chaofeng Sports is a leading force in Asia’s sports industry, distributing racket sports and nutrition products under the Maxwill and Chaofeng brands. With strong partnerships in table tennis and pickleball and a deep commitment to athletic excellence, it is well positioned to accelerate Tournated’s expansion across Asia.
• An undisclosed international padel organization with whom Tournated is partnering to expand its solution worldwide, driving adoption in this rapidly growing sport.
• Scandiweb, Europe’s leading eCommerce and digital transformation agency, has over 20 years of experience delivering scalable platforms for Fortune 500 companies and global brands. Its executives will advise Tournated as tech partners, helping enhance infrastructure and drive the company’s international expansion.

‘The Tournated team has built a strong platform that already resonates with large organizations worldwide, creating a solid queue of prospective customers. Combined with clear product market fit and good execution, this powered our confidence in their growth trajectory. Furthermore, there is excellent synergy between both our organizations, and we are positively poised to contribute to Tournated’s growth,’ Scandiweb’s executive board member Aigars Pavlovics comments.

Empowering Global Sports Ecosystems Further

This new round of funding and strategic partnerships empower Tournated to expand its presence across the Americas and Asia, scale its infrastructure with guidance from Scandiweb’s tech advisors, and strengthen its leadership in racket sports while accelerating growth in other disciplines. The company also aims to empower more governing bodies and sports organizations to launch independent digital ecosystems.

‘On the product side, we are actively developing our club and academy management features, including online bookings, scheduling, and related tools, while at the same time enhancing the performance and user experience of our current platform. These additions will not only simplify daily operations for clubs and academies but also provide governing bodies with new layers of data aggregation and monetization opportunities, by linking grassroots activity directly into federation ecosystems,’ Mr Ribakovs tells ITKeyMedia.

Tournated plans to initiate a larger fundraising round in early 2026 to accelerate its growth further and promote its position as the global standard in sports management.

Tournated is redefining sports management by providing a scalable, athlete-driven platform that bridges the gap between governing bodies, clubs, and competitors worldwide. Its rapid adoption across 50+ countries and 50,000 active athletes demonstrates strong product-market fit and global relevance. With strategic partnerships and ongoing platform enhancements, Tournated is on its way to becoming a cornerstone for digital sports ecosystems.