Burnley FC Kick off Innovation Hub With Initial Cohort Selection

Burnley Football Club has selected three businesses - Camb.ai, Mantis XR and Piing - for the initial cohort of their Innovation Hub, a six-month pilot programme designed to fast-track emerging technology in service of enhanced fan experiences and operational intelligence. 

The Premier League outfit hosted a virtual Pitch Day from Turf Moor to determine the inaugural cohort, inviting shortlisted candidates to present directly to leadership teams from both Burnley and ALK Capital, the club’s ownership group, alongside industry experts. This move marks one of the more ambitious efforts by a top-flight club in English football to integrate startup technology directly into its business and matchday operations.

Selected from a global field of more than 200 applicants, each of the three selected companies brings a distinct capability to the table. Camb.ai harnesses artificial intelligence for real-time content localisation, enabling dynamic translation into more than 150 languages while preserving original tone and personality, a tool that could prove invaluable not just for global fan communication but also media distribution. Mantis XR applies spatial technology to unify disparate fan data across merchandise, ticketing, and hospitality systems, positioning itself as a bridge to more personalised supporter relationships. Piing delivers mass participation games that connect big screens and mobiles, to create stadium-scale interactive experiences, turning matchday downtime and fan events into high-value, sponsorship-ready activations capable of engaging tens of thousands of attendees concurrently.

Chairman Alan Pace said he was “absolutely delighted” with the start-ups joining the programme, emphasising the strategic value of embedding innovation across Burnley’s organisational framework. Vice President of Corporate Development and Investments Penelope Edmonds added that the sheer quality of world-class founders drawn to the initiative highlighted the growing attractiveness of sport as a testbed for cutting-edge technology.

Over the next half-year, the club will work closely with the three companies to deploy their solutions in real-world environments, iterating their technologies with direct access to club staff, fan insights, and operational feedback. Sources close to the project describe the Innovation Hub not as a one-off experiment, but as the foundation of a repeatable model that could scale across football and the broader sports landscape.

For Burnley, a club often celebrated for its grassroots fan identity and community roots, this programme signals a new chapter situating the historic Lancashire club at the frontier of digital transformation and opening doors for wider tech adoption in elite sport.