After banking a $2.5 million seed round last November, CoachUp is on the cusp of starting a new annual trend. The Fort Point-based private coaching company announced Thursday it raised a $6.7 million Series A, co-led by Point Judith Capital and pre-existing investor General Catalyst Partners.
"We are pleased to continue to support CoachUp," said General Catalyst Managing Director David Fialkow in a statement. "We love the marketplace they are building."
CoachUp has successfully been connecting athletes to private coaches, both on the Web and via iOS and Android applications, over the last year. Since securing its seed round, the company reports seeing a 642-percent growth in bookings and a 136-percent growth in users.
Mere weeks after winning $50,000 from last year's MassChallenge awards, Breakaway Ventures' Dennis Baldwin announced that he and Fialkow would be investing in CoachUp's seed round on the Techstars Demo Day stage. To help accelerate growth, the team brought on Gene Shkolnik, former SVP of product development at KAYAK, as CTO and Isabelle Plante, former head of marketing at Wahanda.com, as VP of acquisition.
In the months to follow, former Massachusetts Senator Scott Brown and Boston Bruins President Cam Neely joined CoachUp as a senior adviser and board member, respectively. The team also announced three annual scholarships to help student-athletes advance to college, and started toying around with an 'OpenTable' feature for reserving sports facilities.
This latest round of financing will be used to further build CoachUp's national brand presence, reach new customers and expand the product offering beyond team sports to include yoga, dance and fitness.
Along with the funding, CoachUp also announced Sean Marsh, co-founder and general partner of Point Judith Capital, will be joining the company's board of directors, alongside Brown; Adam Soroca, SVP of global product and operations at Millennial Media; David Pace, former SVP and general counsel at Reebok; and Paul English, CTO and co-founder of KAYAK.
English also participated in the Series A. He was joined by Breakaway Ventures, Data Point Capital, Suffolk Equity Partners and Albert Dobron, managing director at Providence Equity Partners.
“This round was a major milestone for CoachUp; confirming our position as a leader in both the coaching industry and sports/fitness tech space," said CoachUp CEO and Founder Jordan Fliegel in a statement. "Powered by an incredible team, this round will continue to support our core mission of helping athletes reach the next level in their training and athletic pursuits."
