Sports-tech platform Athletto raises angel funding

Sports-tech startup Athletto has raised an undisclosed amount in angel funding from Atul Ingle, managing director at Nagpur-based Renuka Electricals & Controls Pvt Ltd.

The sports and fitness discovery and booking startup said in a statement it plans to deploy this capital in ramping up operations in its home market of Bangalore, expanding to a couple of other cities, hiring and improving technology.

Athletto, operated by O Tree Solutions Pvt Ltd, was founded in April 2015 by IIM-Ahmedabad alumni Ujwal Sutaria and Narayana Vyas, and NITIE alumnus Praveen Gadpayle. Sutaria and Vyas are former national-level tennis players and have played badminton, football, squash, handball and cricket, among other sports. Gadpayle previously worked with logistics firm Gati.

Athletto provides customers information including photographs, timings, contact details, prices and reviews about sports and fitness facilities through its website and apps. It also provides a cloud-based software-as-a-service tool to owners of the facilities to manage their centres and helps them build their online presence.

Ingle, an avid sports lover himself, said the Athletto team is meticulous in their approach and knows its customers well.

Sutaria said Athletto is focused on aggregating listings on its platform and trying to digitise the unorganised sports sector. He estimates that India has about 2.5 lakh sports facilities spread across private, government, educational and residential complexes, but the average occupancy rate of these facilities is 10-15%. "There is tremendous scope to improve it to 50-60%," he said.

The platform has verified about 8,000 sports facilities across eight cities for listing and tied up with 400 sports facilities across Bangalore for online booking. The company claims its platform is facilitating 200 daily transactions and has facilitated at least 40,000 transactions handling an amount of Rs 1.5 crore in less than 10 months.

Athletto joins the growing list of startups that bring stadia, coaches and equipment closer to people in India. It competes with Play Your Sport, goSporto, Playo, BookMySports and OyePlay, among others. Former Flipkart chief business officer Ankit Nagori is also gearing up to launch his sports-tech startup.

Last month, Play Your Sport raised pre-Series A funding from a bunch of investors led by Ashish Gupta, former chief operating officer at Evalueserve. In March, goSporto raised $30,000 (Rs 20 lakh) in seed funding from Singapore-based angel investor Naveen Gupta.

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