DataCurve Joins Adobe for Startups to Bring Fan Intelligence Into The Creative Process

Today Adobe launched Adobe for Startups, a new program built to help early-stage companies grow their brand, content, and customer reach from day zero. DataCurve was selected by Adobe to be featured in the launch announcement. We're using this moment to share why we believe the best fan experiences come from pairing world-class creative work with a real understanding of the fan.

Why this matters for DataCurve

Adobe for Startups gives early-stage companies access to Adobe’s creative and marketing tools, including Firefly, Acrobat Studio, Express, and Semrush, along with a community of fellow founders.

For us, the program matters for a bigger reason. Sports organizations use Adobe to make and share their content. DataCurve helps those same teams understand who their fans are and what each one cares about. When the two work together, teams can create content and sponsor campaigns that actually match their fans’ interests, instead of sending the same creatives to everyone. This is an early step toward bringing the creative process and actual fan intelligence together.

The content explosion (and the blind spot)

Sports has become one of the most prolific content industries in the world because every game produces highlights, social clips, sponsor activations, emails, and in-venue moments.

Adobe is already deep in this space. In September, the NHL named Adobe its Official Creative, Marketing and AI Partner and now uses Adobe GenStudio, Adobe Experience Platform, and Journey Optimizer to deliver personalized content across NHL.com, the NHL app, social, and in-arena.

The tools to make great content at scale are here. The harder question is who each piece is for. Most organizations still see their fans in fragments because ticketing, streaming, merch, social, and sponsor data each live in a separate system. That's how the same superfan can show up as five different people.

What DataCurve does

DataCurve is the intelligence network powering the fan economy, built on persistent fan identity. We connect sports, media, and entertainment organizations with the brands that sponsor them and the fans who make it all matter. That connection is what turns fragmented audience data into lasting fan relationships and measurable revenue growth.

Across that network, every fan resolves into one persistent identity built on consent and permission. On top of that identity, DataCurve surfaces what matters: who your VIPs are, who’s at risk of drifting away, who’s ready to buy, and what will bring them back.

Better together: intelligence meets creativity

Adobe is the world's creative engine. DataCurve knows who the audience is. Put them together and every creative decision starts from what fans actually care about.

"Creativity is far more powerful when you understand who you're creating for. We already use Adobe Firefly for creative assets, and we see an even bigger opportunity to bring DataCurve's fan intelligence directly into the creative process. Imagine a global soccer club creating content that evolves throughout the season as it learns more about what each fan cares about. Adobe for Startups gives us the tools to start bringing that vision to life." — Aman Johar, Co-Founder and CEO, DataCurve

Illustrative data of DataCurve's FanHub platform.

Here's what that can look like in practice, using the view above:

1. Know the moment. In this example, FanHub flags 4,615 fans at high risk of churning.

2. Pick the play. DataCurve recommends the campaigns most likely to win them back: social content built on nostalgic moments, event offers by email, and VIP behind-the-scenes access.

3. Create for those fans. Teams take each recommendation into Adobe Firefly and Express to produce on-brand content that varies by segment instead of one campaign for everyone.

4. Learn and evolve. Every interaction feeds back into the fan's identity, so next week's content is smarter than this week's.

Each campaign informs the next, so by the end of a season every fan is seeing content shaped by what they've actually responded to.

Why it matters

The payoff shows up well beyond the creative team:

• Production and paid media stop going to audiences who were never going to respond.

• Fans who feel understood stick around longer and spend more over their lifetime.

• Curated audiences built around real fan interests give sponsors a reason to spend and give rights holders new revenue.

What's next

We're starting with Adobe Firefly, which we already use for creative assets. Adobe Express, Semrush, and analytics are natural next steps as content creation, engagement, and measurement start feeding each other.

Thank you to Hannah Steinhardt, Carly Listman, and the whole Adobe team for including us. If you run a sports, media, or entertainment property and want to see what fan intelligence can do for your creative and sponsorship programs, let's talk.

Read Adobe's announcement here.