A serial entrepreneur and long-time tennis player, Max Ade picked up pickleball after realizing the sport had a short learning curve and was easier to play with friends and neighbors.
As he watched the sport grow in popularity, he noticed there was a lack of technology for players and organizers trying to schedule matches. He launched Pickleheads with co-founders Brandon Mackie and Ian Langworth to solve that.
“Of all the trends toward more social media, more internet, more isolation, more people at home when they're working, the one trend that’s going in the other direction is pickleball, where you have 50 people showing up to a court,” Ade said.
Now, Pickleheads has 100,000 users on its platform each month and is able to connect players to 10,000 locations in 4,400 cities in the U.S., Ade said. What’s more, NBA star Kevin Durant and businessman Rich Kleiman are betting on the company’s growth.
In October 2022, Atlanta-based Overline and Washington D.C.-based Ardent Venture Partners joined Durant and Kleiman's Boardroom Pickleball entity for a $750,000 seed round into the company. Those funds will be used by the company for engineering, marketing and design.
Pickleheads claims to be the first venture-backed technology startup to enter the pickleball space. Atlanta Inno has not been able to independently verify this.
That investment happened the same month Durant and Kleiman purchased a Major League Pickleball team of their own, with the intent of helping grow the league. The Brooklyn Nets player is one of several athletic celebrities, such as Lebron James and Tom Brady, to become an owner of a MLP team.
Pickleball, which can be described as a combination of tennis and badminton, has been recognized as the fastest-growing sport in the nation. Last year, over 36 million Americans picked up the game, compared with the 4.8 million reported to play in 2021, according to the Sports & Fitness Industry Association.
The trend has caught the attention of city planners and developers, with pickleball courts popping up in public parks, mixed-use developments and as featured amenities at certain “eatertainment” restaurants.
Pickleheads' platform is for pickleball players and organizers alike to schedule and organize playing sessions, create group chats, connect with nearby players for matches, collect signups and manage waitlists.
Ade’s previous company, Growth Collective, was bootstrapped. Pickleheads is intentionally taking venture capital to flip the order of how the product is built.
“Instead of immediately launching monetization products, we're launching products that will become fundamental to players,” said Ade. “Once we have every pickleball player in the country using our platform, it'll be easy to monetize by recommending gear, creating leagues or helping instructors sell clinics or group owners collect subscriptions.”
The startup looks to eventually assist professional pickleball leagues to promote events to local players. Over the years, the startup also looks to add the ability for players to find instructors, join leagues and track their rating. It is gearing up for an expansion in Canada followed by more global cities.
