BERLIN - Lucas von Cranach has come a long way since starting his professional career at a German machinery production company in the mid-2000s.
After struggling to keep up with the goings-on at his favorite soccer team, F.C. Cologne, Mr. von Cranach created Football App in 2008 to allow people to use a cellphone to track leading global soccer teams like Real Madrid or Manchester United.
On Thursday, Mr. von Cranach’s fledgling company, and the wider Berlin technology scene, got a boost after Union Square Ventures, a New York firm that has backed companies like Twitter, Zynga and Tumblr, announced that it had invested $7 million in Football App.
The new investment follows a previous $13 million fund-raising round this year from a consortium of local investors, including the venture firm Earlybird Venture Capital of Berlin.
“With Union Square’s investment, we want to build a global network,†Mr. von Cranach said in his Berlin office. The walls are decorated with large posters of soccer stars like Diego Maradona. “They have a reputation for helping to build social networks from scratch.â€
Over the last five years, the app, which provides news, team updates and the opportunity to communicate with other fans about games or teams, has been downloaded more than 10 million times.
Mr. von Cranach said the firm was getting up to 50,000 daily downloads and that he hoped to use the World Cup in Brazil next year to branch out into emerging markets. Germany, Italy and Britain remain its largest markets, though Brazil ranks fourth, based on downloads.
The investment by an American venture firm in a company based in Berlin comes as the city is gaining credibility as one of Europe’s largest high-tech hubs.
Companies like the music service SoundCloud, which has also raised money from Union Square, and the online game maker Wooga have become global players in their respective markets, and are increasingly turning to firms in the United States to raise additional capital.
Yet while Berlin is gaining traction, it is still dwarfed by rivals like London in raising money.
Berlin’s tech sector received a combined $87.1 million in venture capital money in the first half of the year, according to the data provider Dow Jones Venture Source. That compares with $351.7 million in the same period for companies based in London.
