The Padel Path to Growth

THE NEW RACKET SPORT IS ADDED TO THOSE ALREADY PRESENT ON THE PRENOTAUNCAMPO PLATFORM

PrenotaUnCampo (Book-A-Court) takes the padel path to continue growing. “After creating the digital platform to book sports courts and fields in Italy, which became one of the largest in Europe, in 2020 we decided to join forces with our main Spanish competitor Playtomic. We chose to proceed with an international merger to ensure global growth, considering it a more effective solution than the traditional corporate internationalization plan", says Nicola Biffi, co-founder and CEO of the start-up born in 2014 and now COO of the new Italian-Spanish business group.

"We started the merger process just when there was a high market demand and low supply of sports services of this kind, especially for the fast-growing padel fan base. And for this new racket sport, PrenotaUnCampo and Playtomic already were points of reference in the Italian and the Iberian Peninsula, respectively".

The two companies then invested more and more in the social media features of their apps and began to expand all over the world, "Just like padel is doing, a sport considered by many to be fun and sociable", continues Biffi. “However, before doing the merger, we did three years of talks with Playtomic. It is a long and delicate process for a start-up, also because there must be a common strategic vision with the group one plans to join", emphasizes Biffi. “And it was the same between Playtomic and us. The idea of ​​being able to allow every sportsperson to play anywhere in the world thanks to the same app is what made us put aside any personal interests and pushed us to close the agreement".

Furthermore, in sports as in other sectors, consumers turn more frequently to digital marketplaces for services, rather than individual web portals, wanting to view the range of different proposals, before purchasing a service or a product. And therefore, helping the marriage between PrenotaUnCampo and Playtomic, there was also the opportunity to join the growing trend of sports marketplaces. In the future, “we will tend to focus more on racket sports like tennis and padel”, remarks Biffi, who also sits on Playtomic's board of directors. “The function that lets you book a court or field for each individual sports discipline remains but, the Matches function is growing in demand, which allows app users to look for other players to set a game, especially among padel enthusiasts. Launching a more social app means, in effect, offering more services to reserve a match also to people who did not know each other previously, matching them on the basis of level of expertise, and allowing them to post images to share the experience of the game", comments Biffi. Meanwhile, at the end of 2021, the migration process of sports centers from PrenotaUnCampo to Playtomic was completed. The new group has more than 150 employees and now attracts over one million players from all over the world every month, ranging from Australia to the United States.
 
Nicola Biffi got his undergraduate degree from Bocconi in 2008 in Economics and Social Sciences. In 2010 he completed the Master of Science in Economics and Management of Innovation and Technology, and remembers how the business idea of PrenotaUnCampo was born within the walls of Bocconi: "I joined a course focusing on building a business plan, and in the first day of class they invited us to present a business idea for which we would apply the subsequent teachings of the course. It was only 2009 but the idea was very similar to what Playtomic has become today and, among others, I managed to persuade Marco Rossi, co-founder of PrenotaUnCampo, who is still working with me after the merger."
 

by Camillo Papini