Founder & CEO
Sponza
The marketplace connecting athletes directly with brands. Built from the inside by someone who has been on both sides of the table.
Matt Richards MBE
Olympic championin the water.Founder beyond it.
Double Olympic gold medallist. World champion. Founder & CEO of Sponza.
Partner with Matt →The Numbers
A career told not in adjectives, but in figures that ended droughts and rewrote records.
1908
The year Britain last won the men’s 4×200m freestyle relay before Tokyo 2020.
×2
Back-to-back Olympic golds in the same event - Tokyo and Paris.
0.02
Seconds separating Olympic silver from gold in the 200m freestyle, Paris 2024.
4
World Championship titles across 2023 and 2025.
01 - The Story
A boy from Droitwich who helped end a 113-year British wait - then built a company to fix the sport that made him.
At 18, Matt swam the third leg as Great Britain won the Olympic 4×200m freestyle relay in Tokyo - the country’s first title in the event since 1908. Three years later in Paris, he lost the 200m final by two hundredths of a second, then returned with the same four teammates to become the first quartet in history to defend an Olympic relay title.
Between races, he founded Sponza - an athlete sponsorship marketplace built from the frustration of seeing how the system actually works from the inside.
Read the full story02 - Ventures
Building the future of the athlete economy - while still racing at the top of it.
ACTIVE INVESTOR
Sports & Wellness
Providing capital, advisory and marketing/distribution support to pre-seed and seed-stage companies for growth.
03 - Partnership
“I understand sponsorship from both sides of the table. That changes the conversation.”
Ambassadorship, campaigns, appearances, speaking, content. A partner who has built the marketplace, not just walked the red carpet.
Explore partnership →