Football stars Thierry Henry, Cesc Fabregas and Robin van Persie, and NBA basketball player Tony Parker have joined the tech rush by investing in a British video sharing start-up.

London-based Grabyo, which helps broadcasters share real-time video highlights on social media, announced it had raised £1.25million ($2million) in investment this evening - including the backing of the sporting stars.

Broadcasters, such as Sky, ITV or BT, can use the platform to publish near-live clips on Twitter and Facebook from sports or TV series they own the rights for - and monetise them with adverts.

Premier pitch: Grabyo CEO Gareth Capon with football star Thierry Henry, who has invested in the platform

The sports stars' investments made up the bulk of the money raised, with the rest coming from angel investors attracted by the growing demand for video sharing on social media and mobile.

Grabyo also opens up the opportunity for stars themselves to lever their huge social media followings with monetised video.

Manchester United footballer Van Persie has 6.54million Twitter followers, while fellow investor Thierry Henry has 1.47million.

Gareth Capon, of Grabyo, said: ‘From global sports stars and musicians, to Hollywood actors and supermodels, the number of famous faces with millions of highly engaged fans on social media is staggering.

‘As more people are able to enjoy video across social platforms such as Twitter and Facebook, the involvement of star talent will open up new distribution opportunities for broadcasters, rights holders and brands.’

Since launching last year, the company has worked with more than 30 major broadcasters, including BSkyB, ITV and Channel 5 in the UK, and rights holders - bringing live highlights from some of the world’s biggest events in sport and music.

These include the FIFA World Cup, Spanish football from La Liga, tennis at Wimbledon and the ATP World Tour, golf from The Ryder Cup, UEFA Champions League and the BRIT Awards.

For example, winning goals or dramatic tackles during sports games can be viewed, shared and commented on via social media, as and when they happen, to promote greater audience engagement. Adverts before or after the clips and the potential for sponsorship generate revenue.

HOW IT WORKS: GRABYO AT WIMBLEDON Celebrating: Nick Kyrgios vs Rafael Nadal at Wimbledon During this year's Wimbledon tennis tournament, the All England Lawn Tennis Association installed video feeds on its three main courts, each of which was integrated with Grabyo. Grabyo created a Wimbledon-branded video gallery on Wimbledon.com and ensured that the association was set up to share real-time video across social, web, and mobiles apps. Over the course of the tournament, it shared more than 300 video clips across Facebook and Twitter, generating over 3.5 million plays. Facebook generated over 1.5 million views while Twitter generated 1.4 million; nearly 600,000 were viewed on the Grabyo-powered Wimbledon.com video gallery. The most viewed clip of the tournament featured Nick Kyrgios hitting a winner during his match against Rafa Nadal. The video generated over 447,000 clip views and 27,924 Facebook interactions. The match itself also generated an impressive 660,250 tweets, peaking at 11,393 tweets per minute.

Grabyo is one of the many London tech start-ups vying for investment and success, as part of what has become one of the fastest-growing technology scenes in the world.

The London technology cluster centres on Old Street and Shoreditch but firms have spread across the capital, boosted by government support.

Among London-based tech firms, some big names have hit the headlines this year, with Just Eat and Zoopla floating on the stock market, while Google bought artificial intelligence start-up DeepMind for a reported £400million.

Google, Facebook and Amazon have all opened offices in London to tap into the scene.

High profile: Another star investor is Robin van Persie, pictured with Grabyo founder Will Neale

Grabyo says it is in the process of building new partnerships with a number of football clubs and other 'innovative global brands'. It will use the recent investment to boost growth across Europe and North America.

Thierry Henry, the former Arsenal star, said: 'Being away from London makes it harder to keep up with what's happening in European football. Grabyo makes it easy for fans to follow the action by making the best moments available in an instant. I am looking forward to helping the company grow.'

Mr Capon said: 'Having leading stars in global sport backing us is testament to the momentum we’re now enjoying as demand for real-time video accelerates.

'Premium rights holders now recognise the value of making content available wherever their customers spend their time, which is increasingly on social platforms via a mobile device.

'Meanwhile, brands increasingly want to align with premium video content and engage consumers at scale. As a result, video, mobile and social are the most important growth sectors of the global advertising industry – and Grabyo sits across all three.'

He added that Grabyo has experienced a significant increase in reach, engagement and video views, as technology has evolved to allow clips to automatically play in the newsfeed on Facebook, or require just one click to view on Twitter.