KOOH Sports: A Technology Company Providing Sports Education and Training

KOOH Sports is Indian Sports Education, Training Technology Company set up with a passion to get kids of today to embrace sport and more importantly a healthier lifestyle founded in 2010 by Chirag Patel.

Having rapidly grown since going live in 2012, KOOH Sports through a multitude of products and programmes provides sports education and training to 200,000 kids across India.

KOOH Sports offers multi-sport in-school curriculums covering 14 different sports (Cricket, Football, Basketball, Tennis, Badminton, Volleyball, Swimming, Hockey, Skating, Squash, Yoga, Archery, Table Tennis and Tae Kwon Do).

KOOH Sports has tied up with more than 180 schools across India inclusive of Tier I and II cities.

It also regularly conducts high performance training camps and one-on-one training sessions in cricket, football and basketball spearheaded by world-class sports technical directors.

KOOH Sports Initiatives:

a. Given the advent of increasing crime against women, KOOH Sports has launched an initiative called Freedom From Fear in association with The Taekwondo Federation of India. This is a self-defense programme and the idea is to equip women with self-defense techniques and skills that give them the courage to fight and overcome fear.

b. As the demand gap keeps growing between skilled coaches and aspirants, KOOH Sports has launched a vocational training programme called KOOH Sports Institute of Training & Excellence for Sports & Education Skills (KITES). It will provide vocational training programme to sports coaches and physical education teachers. The company intends to train 50,000 coaches in the next eight to ten years.

c. KOOH Sports Lab has developed a unique Health & Fitness Assessment Protocol FOCUS (Fitness Of Your Corporates Using Science). FOCUS is a unique scientific assessment module to accurately assess health, fitness and activity levels through a circuit made up of physical assessments and a questionnaire. This test will be conducted with corporate companies to ensure the fitness level of employees as more and more companies are now adopting fitter norms for their employees.

d. City Super League is a platform for kids to perform and showcase their talent at professionally run contests. Some of the leagues which were held in past few years include; Dwarka Super League (Football) was launched in 2014 in Dwarka suburb of New Delhi and Jaipur Super League (Football & Cricket) has been launched for the schools in Jaipur in 2015.

There are many initiatives in the pipeline and a lot of emphasis is being given on health and fitness. Along with that, Sports psychology, sports nutrition and sports physiology will also be some the areas where the company wants to focus on.

Chitrakshi Suneja Interacts With Chirag Patel, CEO, KOOH Sports And Spoke To Him

Detailed Description

KOOH Sports is driven by the age old philosophy “a fit body leads to an able mind” and aims to be present throughout the journey of a kid from early stage movement to being active for life and for a persistent few even turning professional at a sport of their choice. “Early stage movement to active for life” or “early stage movement to podium” is the central theme. We deliver grass root programs at schools to initiate interest in sports, nurture talent through our sports development centers and promote talent with best in class sports properties. Given that traditional methods of training are no more applicable to today’s kids; we have developed a break through methodology of training – GRIT©. GRIT combines Game intelligence to learn, Repetition (ball contact time) to excel, Innovative progression to customize learning and Talent management to hone in talent.

KOOH Sports runs on a threefold idea where they:

1. Initiate interest in sports through 'in-school' sports education programmes
2. Nurture talent through ‘after school’ sports development academies
3. Promote talent through specialized talent hunt platforms

We have been able to scale up and expand our footprint due to our rigorous focus on internal systems founded on three pillars of developing age progressive curriculum, skilling coaches and adopting digital technologies that allows us to connect with schools, parents and coaches to impact the desired level of transformation. Our physical education teachers and coaches go through intensive in-house training that covers soft and technical skills. Our service quality system effectively monitors our service delivery at schools, clubs and communities and we have a combined workforce of 400 people that include coaches, technical team and administrative staff. We expect to be a 1,000 people company in 3-5 years.

At KOOH Sports, we have realized the importance of having high quality trainers and coaches on our staff. They are the most critical elements required to be perfect and can lead us to success or failure. We have created a Quality & Training team that audits, checks, trains and shadows our coaches. Our trainers go through extensive practical and theoretical training before they are placed in the schools and academies. They are assessed and monitored for quality delivery at every stage. We have created a level progression programme that allows the coaches to benefit from skill enhancements and exposures. They are also guided and trained periodically by our proficient technical directors and experts and sports luminaries. Some of the sports luminaries and experts that we have on our panel are:

- John Gloster, (a sports physiotherapist from Australia with 24 years’ experience of working with elite athletes. He has worked extensively with international cricket teams for the last 17 years most notably as physiotherapist to the Indian Cricket Team for 3.5 years as well)

- Apurva Desaii (Apurva Desaii is a former First Class and List A cricketer from Gujarat. He is a BCCI Level C certified coach and has trained many state players. He specializes in batting and has worked with the current India A and India Under 19 players)

- Dinesh Jaimon (Mr. Jaimon has previously worked as Executive Director - State Cricket Academy of Rajasthan Cricket Association from 2001 to 2003. He was also the Lead Coach for U19 Central team and Rajasthan State U22 and Ranji Trophy team from 1994-2012)

- Shiba Maggon (She is a renowned basketball player and was a part of National Basketball team. She is also the coach for the Indian Junior Team and one of the first women to qualify as an international referee)

Idea Generation

In the current scenario, we are seeing kids hooked on to their television sets, iPads, laptops and mobile phones. Kids are increasingly reluctant to move out from their comfort zone and couches to be active and play sports. With the advent of advertising and technology, junk foods are over exposed to children at a young age and we are seeing kids as young as six years facing obesity, hypertension and diabetes issue. Globally, an estimated 10 percent children, between 5 to 17 years of age, are overweight or obese.

Chirag Patel who is currently Chief Executive Officer at KOOH Sports and Mr. Prabhu Srinivasan who is Co-founder of the company came up with the idea of instilling the idea of fitness amongst kids at a very early age. They identified the gaps too soon whilst their own children were growing up and believed that children needed to become fitter and lead a healthier lifestyle. To address these gaps, it was important to create an engaging platform with a strong focus on physical activity to improve health and fitness outcomes. Sports came across as the obvious choice, and hence KOOH Sports was born.

Special Features

Our aim is to be present throughout the journey of a kid from early stage movement to being active for life and for a persistent few turning professional at a sport of their choice. KOOH Sports’ strategy is;

1. to create pool of sports coaches and experts
2. deploy sports education and training programmes at schools and communities
3. Create Talent Identification platforms and Youth Development programmes
4. Create cutting-edge content and curriculum

Our business model spans the sports value chain by being holistic and interlinked at one level and progressive at the other level to provide a comprehensive solution to children across their lifecycle. We are not only providing a podium for aspiring sports personnel but also emphasizing on the fitness level of kids right from an early stage.

We have set up the KOOH Sports Lab, which is responsible for researching new products, market requirements, and constantly assess the current product landscape versus the optimum levels required to make India a fitter nation. Our solutions are customized basis geographic, economic and spatial requirements.

We also have a highly organized Quality, Training and Curriculum development team that researches, assesses and develops sports curriculum. The team leverages the expertise of sports luminaries and scientists on board with us and also engages external subject matter experts as and when needed.

Differentiation Factors

KOOH Sports is an end to end health and fitness company enabled by sports. We start at the early age of 2 and are present across the lifecycle of the kid instilling positive habits that will help them with their holistic development.

Our curriculum for in-school, our sports development centers and talent leagues have been designed keeping in mind a lot of factors. Our products fit various requirements of schools and communities, and we have invested in a technical team that continuously monitors the quality of the delivery and programmes.

All programmes designed by KOOH Sports are based on the fundamentals of athletics and physical fitness. We have also brought a Sports Scientist on board who has helped design a health, activity and fitness assessment module called FOCUS. KOOH Sports Lab has developed a unique Health & Fitness Assessment Protocol for kids in age group of 3 to 18 years - FOCUS (Fitness Of Your Child Using Science). FOCUS is a unique scientific assessment module to accurately assess health, fitness and activity levels through a circuit made up of physical assessments and a questionnaire. All tests are conducted by FOCUS certified coaches under the supervision of a Sports Scientist. The process of this test done through three steps;

1. Quick Health Check which includes BMI, Body Fat %, Waist to Hip ratio, Pulse and Blood Pressure

2. Full Fitness Assessment includes Flexibility, Balance, Upper Body Strength, Lower Body Strength, Core Stability, Power and Cardiovascular Endurance

3. Activity Analysis which includes Activity Assessment and Lifestyle Assessment

KOOH Sports is becoming a pioneer in enabling sports through technology. KOOH Sports has launched mobile ERP platform ‘Excalibur’. The platform will help KOOH Sports monitor and coordinate the tasks of the training centers and the coaches. The entire effort by the company is to leverage technology, to digitize their operations by giving a seamless experience to the coaches to access the whole curriculum on tablets. The software will help in planning a session for the kids who have enrolled in their Sports Education (SE) and Sports Development Centers (SDC’s), manage their on-ground delivery, record all tournaments and competitions etc. The launch of this platform will help in scaling up and reaching out to more schools for operational excellence. This technology-enabled platform will not only help the coaches to engage with other stakeholders like parents and get feedback from them on their kids activities, but also helps in assessment of the child’s performance, player profiles and history, get instant reports on the child’s progress, identify talent, and instantly chat with parents in real-time by sharing relevant images and videos. Coaches can also develop communities and collaborate with other coaches and build an ecosystem to foster innovation in sports.

Funding Details

Our delivery model includes service offerings that include 14 sports, we have designed products that fit various requirements of schools and communities and we have invested in a technical team that continuously monitors the quality of the delivery and programmes. We have juxtaposed technology to prevent barriers to scaling up. We have investors that are patient and supportive of the long journey we have embarked upon.

KOOH Sports has received the below funding till date:

Seed funding from the Intelenet management team – with Susir Kumar (CEO Serco Global Services), Prabhu Srinivasan (current MD KOOH Sports, then COO Serco) and Chirag Patel (current CEO KOOH Sports and then Head – M&A Serco)

Institutional funding rounds from TCS & HDFC, followed by several funding rounds from Faering Capital and quite recently Elevate Sports.

KOOH Sports is gearing up for growth stage funding for acquisitions & partnership development in international markets.

Monetization Model

We are a multi sports training and services company. Our objective is to improve the health outcomes for a child, and if that is achieved, then the chances of him/her remaining active for life improve. It also diminishes health disorders, and so active lifestyle is what we are promoting through sports in a very structured and scientific way.

KOOH Sports ties up with schools where they operate on a contract basis. KOOH has developed an In-School programme that provides sports education and training during school hours backed by a structured and age progressive curriculum. KOOH works according to the school schedule where we conduct 80 to 100 sessions over a year per school. Schools and KOOH combine together to ensure that kids get perfect balance of study and sports. KOOH has developed programmes like KID-FIT, Get- Athletics and PEAK that ensures holistic development of kids. The idea is to let the kids explore all the sports and then choose the sport that interests them.

The Sports Developments Centers are high skill training centers providing kids with skilled training in a particular sport with guidance from a battery of KOOH Sports technical coaches. These sports development centers are where the parents enroll their children with KOOH Sports.

League Matches and Talent Hunt Initiatives are way of bringing up kids who fare well at SDCs. Kids who are extremely talented are given a platform to compete at state and national level league matches. KOOH Sports has conducted, Jaipur Super League, Dwarka Super League, matches in Ghaziabad with a high turnout of participation from girls and boys across sports like cricket, football, basketball, etc. These league matches are sponsored events and help develop a competitive spirit among the children.

Future Plans

On the domestic front, there many initiatives like Freedom from Fear, KITES programme and many more which are in the pipeline. KOOH Sports had already tied up with USA Global Cricket Academy for a High performance training which was conducted last month in Dehradun wherein 15 kids from USA had come to the center where they were trained for cricket by KOOH Sports technical team. We are exploring to expand in nearshore or adjacent markets. We also want to build expertise in swimming and tennis just as we have done for cricket, football and basketball.