From courts to communities: How Playo is turning recreational sports into a scalable business

With India's recreational sports environment picking up speed, Playo has discreetly become one of the country's leading sports networks, driven by its community. With operations spanning 150 cities and five countries, the Bengaluru-based sports-tech firm currently links more than five million users, providing access to venue discovery, playing partners, coaching, insurance, and sports services. Playo has achieved profitability and capital efficiency by prioritizing community engagement over customer acquisition, even though they've secured less than $1 million in outside funding. In this conversation with The Economic Times Digital, Gauravjeet Singh, Founder and CEO of Playo, talks about leaving investment banking to build the company, creating a sustainable sports-tech business, balancing growth with profitability, and why India's next fitness revolution will be driven by participation in sport rather than just exercise. Edited excerpts.

Economic Times (ET): You left a successful career in investment banking to build Playo in 2015. What inspired you to take that leap, and what gap in India's sports ecosystem convinced you this could become a sustainable business rather than just another booking app?

Gauravjeet Singh (GS): Sports had always been an important part of my life growing up, but like many working professionals, I gradually stopped playing once I entered the corporate world. When I wanted to get back into sport, I realised it wasn't easy. Finding a venue was one problem, but finding people to play with was an even bigger one. More importantly, I noticed that people were not giving up sports because they didn't enjoy them; they had simply lost access to an ecosystem of friends and places that made playing easy.


That was the insight behind Playo. We were not trying to build a booking platform. We wanted to build the operating system for recreational sports by solving every friction that prevents people from playing, whether it's discovering venues, finding fellow players, organising games or eventually accessing coaching, equipment and other services. The larger opportunity was never venue booking. It was enabling millions of adults to rediscover sport as part of everyday life.

ET: Playo has evolved from a court-booking platform into what you describe as India's largest community sports platform. How would you explain the business in simple terms to someone who has never used the app, and how has that evolution shaped your long-term vision?

GS: The simplest way to describe Playo is that we help people connect and play sports. Booking a venue is only one small part of that journey.

Our platform helps people discover venues, join games, meet other players, improve through coaching, access sports equipment, and increasingly, benefit from services like injury insurance and equipment protection. Today, we facilitate nearly 2 million playing sessions every month across over 150 cities and five countries. Over the years, we have realised that our real product is not booking infrastructure. It's helping people build healthier lifestyles, stronger friendships, and lasting communities through sport. That understanding has shaped our long-term vision of building a full-stack sports participation ecosystem rather than a transactional marketplace.

ET: The sports-tech space has seen several players over the years. What differentiates Playo from competitors, and what has enabled it to build a community of over five million users while remaining largely organic?

GS: We have always believed that community is our biggest differentiator. Many platforms view venue booking as the end product. We see it as the starting point. You can watch a movie alone, but you cannot play sports alone. Sports are inherently social. They require teammates, opponents, and communities.

Every month, Playo facilitates over 600,000 new player connections through our Pay & Join feature. These are 600,000 complete strangers who meet offline to play because of us. Nearly five million messages are exchanged between users on the platform every month. These interactions create relationships that go far beyond transactions.

Our growth has largely been organic because people do not simply return to book another court. They return because they've found a community they enjoy playing with. When your product becomes part of someone's lifestyle rather than just their utility stack, retention follows naturally.

ET: Your platform today spans venue discovery, player matching, coaching, insurance, and partnerships with brands like Amazon and Decathlon. How does Playo's business model work, and which revenue streams are contributing the most to growth today?

GS: Venue bookings continue to be our largest revenue driver, but from day one we believed that every activity around playing sport represented an opportunity to create value.

As our user base and ecosystem matured, we expanded into coaching, trainer discovery, corporate sports, retail partnerships, wellness vouchers, sports injury insurance (of which we sell 125,000 policies every month) and equipment protection. Partnerships with brands like Amazon and Decathlon allow us to extend the user experience beyond the game itself.

Our philosophy has always been to increase wallet share by solving more problems for people who play, rather than simply trying to maximise transactions within one category. As participation grows, adjacent services become natural extensions of the platform.

ET: Playo has achieved profitability with less than $1 million in external funding. What were some of the toughest decisions that helped you build a capital-efficient business, and how do you balance growth with profitability?

GS: Limited capital forced us to build discipline very early. We could not afford to grow through discounts or marketing-led acquisition, so we had to build a product people genuinely wanted to return to. Every investment had to improve user experience, retention, or monetisation.

We have remained gross-margin positive from day one and have consistently focused on strong unit economics rather than vanity metrics. That meant saying no to growth opportunities that weren't sustainable, prioritising product over marketing, and constantly improving operational efficiency.

Profitability should not come at the cost of growth, nor should growth come at the cost of financial discipline. The right balance is achieved when every incremental investment creates long-term value rather than temporary scale.

ET: How has the business grown over the last few years in terms of revenue, user engagement, and partnerships? What metrics do you believe best reflect Playo's progress today?

GS: We have grown consistently at around 70% year-on-year in revenue over the last couple of years. Our consolidated revenue grew from approximately Rs 28 crore in FY25 to around Rs 40 crore in FY26, while maintaining healthy gross margins.

Today, Playo serves over five million users across over 150 cities in five countries and facilitates nearly two million playing sessions every month. We also enable over 600,000 new sports friendships every month and have built an ecosystem of over 5,000 venue partners.

Beyond scale, some of the metrics we value most are retention and engagement. Around 20-25% of users continue using the platform even after twelve months; our average user actively plays 2.5 sports, and nearly five million direct messages are exchanged every month between users. Those metrics tell us we're building lasting habits rather than occasional transactions.

ET: Badminton and pickleball are witnessing tremendous momentum across urban India. How do you see sports participation evolving in the country, and what role can technology play in making recreational sports more accessible and habitual?

GS: We are seeing a fundamental cultural shift. Earlier, fitness was largely associated with gyms. Today, more people want movement that is enjoyable, social and sustainable. That's why sports like badminton, pickleball, box cricket and padel are growing rapidly.

Interestingly, we have found that pickleball often acts as a gateway sport. Once people rediscover the joy of playing, they do not limit themselves to one sport. The average Playo user participates in around 2.5 different sports.

Technology's role is not to replace human interaction but to enable it. It can help match players by skill level, organise games, recommend venues, simplify payments, and remove every friction that prevents someone from playing. Ultimately, technology should help people spend less time on screens and more time on courts.

ET: Looking ahead, what are your priorities for Playo over the next three to five years? Are you focused on deeper penetration in India, international expansion, new services, strategic partnerships, or even fundraising to accelerate the next phase of growth?

GS: Our focus remains unchanged: getting more people to play. India remains a massive opportunity because sports participation is still in its early stages. At the same time, we're steadily expanding internationally across markets where organised recreational sports are gaining momentum, particularly in the Middle East and South Asia.

We will continue expanding the ecosystem around playing by strengthening community features, coaching, corporate wellness, retail partnerships, insurance, and other participation-led services. As AI evolves, we'll also use it to deliver more personalised experiences, improve player matching, and deepen engagement.

Fundraising has never been an objective in itself. If capital helps accelerate the right opportunities while preserving our long-term philosophy, we'll certainly consider it. But our North Star will continue to be building a fundamentally strong, profitable business that makes sport a lifelong habit for millions of people.