Former Australian professional footballers Lucas Neill and Paul (PJ) Roberts are joining PiPsports as a brand ambassador and investors respectively.

The $200,000 seed fund round the company has now completed represents the first time that the company has secured ‘significant investment’ since the release of its beta app in November 2013.

Its platform allows sports fans to create personalised photos of live sports games, bolstered by real-time data from OPTA, a sports data company. Users can take photos of sporting action before then overlaying on top of different skins.

Since launching its beta service, PiPsports has secured 225,000 users, and predicts upwards of one million by the end of 2014 on the back of events such as the football and rugby world cups and the implementation of its full version.

Steven Rogers, founder and CEO of PiPsports, says that despite attracting in excess of 200,000 users, the beta release was kept ‘quite low key’.

‘The seed funding we’ve raised will assist in continuing to grow the user base and support more sports in the app,’ he explains

‘Adding more sports is essential, as it allows us to reach a larger demographic of sports fans and, and the same time, increases the amount of content being shared and engagement with the PiPsports streams, and PiPsports content on Facebook.’

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The $200,000 will finance the expansion of PiPsports user base, add new features as it moves towards its desired target of one million and integrate additional skins.

The new sports being mooted for inclusion are global football leagues, Major League Baseball, tennis and golf.

New brand ambassador Lucas Neill, who played for British Premiership teams such as Everton and West Ham as well as the Australian national team, says that PiPsports is a great example of how fans’ passion for their team and sport can be channelled and enhanced through technology.

Joining Roberts and CEO Rogers in the funding deal is Chris Welch, owner and managing director of events and sponsorship consultancy ESB. All will be taking a minority stake in the company.