Gaja Capital, a homegrown private equity fund, has acquired a minority stake in sports education and training company KOOH Sports for Rs 75 crore.
Gaja Capital will invest in KOOH Sports via a mix of primary and secondary stake purchase, where some of the existing investors will make a partial exit in this investment round.
The sports education company is backed by private equity fund Faering Capital, Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), HDFC Ltd and sports promotion service Elevate Sports. The existing investors of KOOH Sports together hold 70% stake in the company while the rest is acquired by the promoters.
Founded by Susir Kumar and Prabhu Srinivasan in 2010, KOOH stands for "Kids Out Of Home". Currently present in 50 cities across India, the firm is providing sports education to 2,00,000 children.
Gopal Jain, the Managing Partner at Gaja Capital, said, "Youth sport is a $20 billion business globally and we believe it to be at an inflexion point in India. As Indians move from watching sports to playing and training for competitive sports, there is an opportunity to create a valuable performance sports platform."
Susir Kumar, Chairman & Co-founder of KOOH Sports, said, "In India, quality of sports education is poor and the children have a little access to sports at early stages. The fund will be used for further expansion of the company."
