Sports education start-up KOOH Sports has raised a fresh round of $2 million from a consortium of investors, including existing investors TCS, HDFC and private equity fund Faering Capital.

The round also saw participation from Mumbai-based sports promotion service Elevate Sports, which will now hold a 5 per cent stake in the company. The other three investors will share a 70 per cent stake.  

KOOH, which stands for kids-out-of-home, was started by Intelenet founders Susir Kumar and Prabhu Srinivasan in 2010. The company aims to get students to become more physically active through in-school and professional sports training programmes. 

“This round was a critical round since we needed to prove our business model is right. We are close to breakeven and are confident of becoming profitable by 2016,” Chirag Patel, CEO of KOOH Sports, told BusinessLine.

The company plans to use the funds to enhance self defence programmes in association with the Taekwondo Federation of India. This initiative will target women across schools, corporate and communities. Besides, it will be opening more basketball academies and launching swimming training for kids.  

Testing platform The company has also launched a health, fitness and activity testing platform called Focus Score. This module measures a kid’s health, fitness and talent through a set of physical tests and questionnaires.

 “We are in the process of finalising a programe with a Europe-based academy to introduce sports tourism. A lot of families go on vacations and during this time, kids are not actively involved in sports related activities,” Patel added.

KOOH has a panel of technical experts like Ajit Wadekar, PT Usha, John Gloster, Rajasthan Royals, Paul Masefield, Andrea Thumshrin and Victor Vaz.

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