PodPlay Raises $8M to Power the Future of Frictionless Pickleball

In the past twelve months, the seamless court-booking app has tripled its revenue and eclipsed one million users over 200 locations. More player-friendly features are on the way.

Imagine a world where you book court time at your favorite pickleball venue straight from your phone. The process is quick, intuitive, and easy to navigate. It looks nice, too; the app is sleek and minimalist. Like if Apple entered the pickleball space.

The experience extends further. The app unlocks the building's front door for you. Then directs you to your designated court. Once you're in full swing, the platform can track your game on a digital scoreboard while playing your favorite playlist.

That epic firefight? One click of a button and the video snippet will be saved for eternity, seamlessly sent to your email and primed for bragging rights.

This is the world of PodPlay. And it exists right now. Your favorite spot might be using its state-of-the-art tech already.

Thanks to an $8 million funding round, it's about to get even better – and make this type of frictionless pickleball experience a reality for hundreds, or thousands, more facilities around the country. Then the world.

More fun, less friction

Booking an open play or reserving a court with friends can be a real hassle. The software is glitchy and dated. It's difficult to filter by skill level or event type. Adding people is annoying. Oh, you need to change the time from 2pm to 3:30? Yeah, you'll need to give us a call for that.

PodPlay Technologies exists to remove friction at every conceivable point, both for the club owner and the club-goer.

Its full-stack platform integrates reservations, memberships, coaching, events, payments, even 24/7 remote monitoring. Clubs using PodPlay have reduced labor costs by up to 66%.

“PodPlay was built to make sports venues both more human and more autonomous,” said Max Kogler, the company's co-founder and CEO.

For the consumer, that means booking the court is a breeze. And playing is a lot more fun, too, thanks to proprietary technology that adds goodies like video replays, digital scoreboards, interactive entertainment, and more.

The replay functionality in particular has proven incredibly popular. It's one thing to experience the joy of a 50-shot dink rally or your first ATP. But PodPlay has unlocked the possibility of a new on-court thrill: the elation of running over to smash the "Replay" button and knowing you've captured that moment for all of time. And it's yours to keep.

Already, the function has been used more than a million times.

From Manhattan ping-pong to global pickleball

PodPlay began as PingPod, an autonomous table tennis concept that opened its first location on the Lower East Side of Manhattan in February of 2020. No onsite staffing meant considerably lower operating costs – enabling prime locations, especially within cities.

The business model not only survived, it thrived through COVID. PingPod was deemed as one of the first non-essential business to reopen its doors again. Nine-foot ping-pong tables demanded social distancing. Reservations through the app assisted contact tracing efforts, if needed.

By 2023, they had more than 20 self-operating locations. And proof-positive that the online reservation business would never be the same.

It wasn't long before another paddle sport came knocking. Pickleball was surging in the American consciousness at the same time, and consumers and clubs were looking for an easier way to book court time.

"The market kind of pulled it out of us," said Kogler.

By mid-2023, they had partnered with CityPickle, one of the country's most prolific pickleball operators, to roll out their tech across locations.

In the past twelve months, PodPlay has tripled its revenue. And they just crossed one million users over 200 locations, including Pickleball Kingdom, Performance Pickleball, SPF, and St. Pete Athletic.

The tech behind America's fastest-growing sport

Today, PodPlay announced its Series A round led by Frontier Growth, a growth equity investment firm based in Charlotte, North Carolina, that specializes in partnering with founders of vertical SaaS companies to help them scale.

“Our diligence revealed an exceptional level of customer passion for PodPlay – operators who describe it as transformative for their venues and communities," said Dave Pandullo, Partner at Frontier Growth.

It only makes sense that the fastest-growing sport in America would require a forward-looking, player-first tech platform that could keep up.

“The future of sports venues is connected, digital, and frictionless," said Ben Borton, Co-Founder of PodPlay. "Frontier’s track record with vertical SaaS leaders will help us scale faster without losing what makes these communities special.”

With new capital and independence, PodPlay will expand its engineering, sales, and customer-success teams to support rapid adoption and product expansion. It's also keen on bringing even more critical club operation functionality into the tech stack, like integrated content management capabilities.

"Partnering with Frontier gives us the runway to accelerate product innovation and bring PodPlay to thousands of venues worldwide," added Max.