Edinburgh-based Game4Padel has expanded into Australia, funded by its fifth oversubscribed fundraising round, valuing the business at more than £23m and increasing its investor base to 85 individuals.
The fast growing mini-tennis same has launched Game4Padel Australia, its first overseas venture. The first-ever padel club in Melbourne has four covered courts and other sports facilities.
The Aussie offshoot has also partnered with Tennis Australia to host the first ever Australian Padel Open during the Australian Open championship.
Game4Padel Australia will not only design, build and operate its own padel venues, but will market, distribute courts for third party venues and assist in helping people looking to open their own padel club. The business has been granted the rights to be exclusive distributor in Australia and New Zealand for Instantpadel courts - a pop-up court concept that can be erected in just around five hours.
Played always as doubles on a court much smaller than a traditional tennis court enclosed with glass walls, Padel is much easier and more accessible to play than tennis, played by hitting the ball over a net and rebounding off the glass walls with purpose-made racquets, while following the tennis scoring system.
The company estimates that the sport is now played by more than 25 million players across more than 90 countries.
It can name Andy and Jamie Murray, former British number one’s Andrew Castle and Annabel Croft, Liverpool FC defender Virgil Van Dijk and Welsh rugby union player Jonathan Davies, as investor ambassadors.
Game4Padel has twice the number of UK venues as any other operator and 35 more venues already secured, including partnerships with mall operator Westfield London and golf governing body the R&A.
Game4Padel chief executive Michael Gradon commented: “Australia is one of the world’s greatest sporting nations with a much better climate for outdoor sport than the UK, so it is perfectly primed for padel.
“We are really excited at the potential for padel in Australia and look forward to using our experience of growing padel in the UK to quickly expand throughout Australia, and then potentially further into APAC.”
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