Tech-enabled sports startup KOOH Sports has raised $2.2 Mn (INR 13 Cr) from existing investors including HDFC, Faering Capital, and Elevate Sports. The founders of the company also participated in the round.
The raised funds will be used to expand into international markets, product development, and marketing. It will also be used to expand its team.
Founded in 2010 by Susir Kumar and Prabhu Srinivasan, the startup offers a training programme for children. It works with schools to inculcate sports education at the grassroot level. The coaches under KOOH are selected through an internal training programme. The company has got accreditation from National Skill Development Corporation (NSDC) to set up a vocational training institute across the country, as per an official statement.
Talking about the development, Chirag Patel, CEO, KOOH Sports, said, “As we are scaling up, we need to offer a better set of holistic sports education services and sports training solutions that underpins the KOOH Sports platform. Armed with new funding our ability to execute and quickly reinforce the India platform becomes that much easier.”
It also uses an ERP solution to offer a third-party solution in addition to curriculum and content to schools.
According to an official statement, KOOH Sports has currently partnered with 180 schools across 50 cities, 80 sports academies in 25 cities. The company is planning to rope in 200 schools, 100 academies in the coming months as well.
Online sports startups are receiving investor attention now. Inc42 reported yesterday that Noida-based sporting app Sportido that enables participation in sports and fitness activities, raised an undisclosed amount of angel funding from Sumpoorna Group. Prior to this, in June 2016, Delhi-based sports tech startup, Play Your Sport raised an undisclosed amount of Pre-Series A funding led by Ashish Gupta, former co-founder of E-valueserve.
Earlier last month, Mobile-based social networking platform for sports, Khel Now received $350K (INR 2.3 Cr) from Anglian Omega Network.
Other startups in this segment include Sports365, Football solutions, Unilazer Sports etc.
