India’s private equity fund Gaja Capital has reportedly acquired a significant minority stake in sports education and training company KOOH Sports. The deal was worth Rs 75 crore ($10 million).
Following the acquisition, Gaja will invest through a mix of primary and secondary stake buy, where a few of the existing investors will make a part exit. Existing investors altogether carry a 70% stake in the company and the rest is held by promoters.
KOOH that stands for kids-out-of-home was launched in 2010 by founders of Intelenet Susir Kumar and Prabhu Srinivasan. The company offers sports education to 2,00,000 children across India currently. It has existence across 50 cities.
“Youth sports is a $20 billion business globally and we believe it to be at an inflection point in India. As Indians move from watching sports to playing and training for competitive sports, there is an opportunity to create a valuable performance sports platform,” said Gopal Jain, managing partner at Gaja Capital.
The KOOH Sports investment will be brought under SportzVillage which is a Gaja-owned platform that provides integrated sports management services to schools & corporates.
SportzVillage operates two businesses – SportzConsult, a sports management company, catering largely to corporate institutions and EduSports, which works with schools to provide physical education and sports programmes.
“In India, quality of sports education is poor and the children have a little access to sports at early stages,” said Susir Kumar, chairman & co-founder of KOOH Sports. According to him, the fund will be used for further expansion of KOOH Sports.
From Gaja Capital’s third fund, KOOH Sports is the ninth investment. In July, Gaja invested in Ahmedabad- and Bengaluru-based educational technology company Educational Initiatives.