Ankored Secures Seed Funding to Simplify Safety and Compliance in Youth Sports

Led by Rally Ventures, with board appointment of SportsEngine co-founder Justin Kaufenberg

BOSTON, Sept. 23, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Ankored, a youth sports safety and compliance platform, today announced the close of its $4 million seed funding round led by Rally Ventures. The investment will accelerate Ankored’s mission to simplify how youth sports organizations keep players safe and manage risk so they can focus more on the game.

Youth sports organizations face a complex patchwork of state- and sport-specific compliance requirements. Coaches and volunteers must navigate hundreds of unique credentials across categories such as certifications, first aid, concussion protocols, and abuse prevention. Missing even one requirement can expose organizations to liability and put athletes at risk. SafeSport, a U.S. governing body for sport compliance, reports a 2,780% increase in misconduct reports since 2017 with nearly 155 reports filed each week across the U.S. — highlighting the need for stronger safeguards.

Ankored simplifies compliance, education, and training by centralizing all requirements into one intuitive workflow. Guardians, coaches, players, and administrators gain real-time visibility into organizational and individual compliance progress with a fraction of the work effort by leveraging Ankored’s automated reminders, dashboards, AI powered tools, and integrations with myriad sports management platforms. Ankored creates a definitive source of truth for youth sports compliance that results in safer athletes, fewer blind spots, and less time lost to paperwork.

“At Ankored, our number one priority is the safety of kids who participate in sports,” said Seth Lieberman, CEO and Founder of Ankored. “For too long, compliance has been hard to achieve and easy to evade. Ankored reduces the friction to complete and monitor everything while giving organizations confidence their athletes and businesses are safe and protected.”

Rally Ventures, a firm with deep expertise in sports technology and compliance solutions, led the seed investment. Justin Kaufenberg, Managing Director at Rally Ventures and co-founder and former CEO of SportsEngine, will join Ankored’s board of directors.

“Youth sports organizations play an invaluable role in our communities, but they’ve long managed compliance and safety with outdated, manual tools,” said Justin Kaufenberg, Managing Director at Rally Ventures. “Ankored is the first platform to unify these critical processes in a way that is simple, scalable, and effective. We’ve seen firsthand how technology can transform youth sports and Ankored is building a category-defining solution.”

With this new funding, Ankored will expand product development and partnerships, aiming to become the standard compliance platform for youth sports organizations nationwide. The youth sports sector, now valued at $37 billion, is projected to reach $69 billion by 2030.

About Ankored
At Ankored, we simplify how youth sports organizations keep players safe and manage risk—so they can focus more on the game. Guardians, coaches, and program administrators benefit from an intuitive workflow that collects and organizes all state- and sport-specific compliance requirements. With a connected ecosystem for registration, background checks, training, and more, sports organizations gain a unified view of their safety-related information. The result? Fewer safety blind spots, less volunteer drop-off, zero system circumvention. Less Paper. More Play.

Media Contact
Rachel Subasic
rachel@rallyventures.com

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