Playtomic, the leading tennis and padel social and booking app, on Wednesday announced it has raised €56 million in a series C investment round led by GP Bullhound, with participation from Playtomic co-founder and investor Félix Ruiz, Claret Capital Partners and Sweden’s Optimizer Invest.
The Madrid-based company – which has a current staff of 150 – plans to use part of the proceeds to grow its technology and product development team from 50 employees currently to as many as 150 over the coming months. Playtomic is building out its software-as-a-service solutions for sports clubs and it is developing a premium subscription service aimed at power users of its app. It is also adding social features to a community of more than one million active monthly users.
“While clubs are starting to embrace digitalization, the user experience for racket players in much of the world remains subpar. Playtomic’s mobile application for players and software for club owners helps make match-making and the booking experience frictionless, and with the additional funding from GP Bullhound and our other partners, Playtomic is in a strong position to further expand our services into new markets globally,” said Pedro Clavería, founder and co-CEO of Playtomic.
Playtomic will also continue to invest in expanding the company’s footprint in Europe and beyond. Over the past two years, Clavería said. Playtomic has purchased several smaller rivals in the US, Sweden, the UK, Belgium, Italy and Portugal. The platform currently operates in 34 countries.
Per Roman, Managing Partner of GP Bullhound, said: “After consolidating its position as the leading bookings platform worldwide, Playtomic has become a truly social app where racket sports lovers can interact and challenge each other. We are excited to see how the new capital is used to provide fans and clubs with state-of-the-art software, and to expand this great product into new geographies.”
Johan Kampe, Senior Managing Director of European Growth Capital at Claret Capital Partners, added that “we are delighted to support Pedro, Felix and the rest of the Playtomic team as it expands its features, services and footprint into new markets across the globe. We believe Playtomic is perfectly positioned to take advantage of the market for one of the fastest growing sports in Europe”.
Félix Ruiz, co-CEO and one of the earliest investors in Playtomic, also provided additional funding in the series C round. “Playtomic is one of the fastest-growing companies I’ve invested in, and we are still in the early stages of the game. The sports industry is only now starting to embrace digitalization,” Ruiz said. “This capital injection gives us the firepower to grow further in Europe and the U.S., supporting clubs with new and innovative initiatives to help grow their business.”
Playtomic, founded in 2017 by Clavería, Ruiz and Pablo Carro, began as a booking app for padel courts, and later expanded into other racket sports as well as team sports. As of November 2021, monthly bookings of courts on the Playtomic app and on its recently acquired platforms surpassed 1 million, roughly triple the number of bookings it registered a year earlier.