Kevin Durant, Larry Fitzgerald and other athletes participate in REC’s Series A round of $ 11 million

REC, a technology company that serves the parks and recreation industry, has collected $ 11 million in a series A finance round in which various former and current professional athletes participated. The company offers software and an app to help people register for sports classes and to book other programs, tennis courts and gyms and to make it easier for recreational directors to handle the influx of questions from residents.

CrossLink Capital, a Menlo Park, California, Risk capital company, led the Series A -round, while existing investors such as NFX, Precursor Ventures and Long Journey Ventures that were part of the $ 6.2 million seed of the company round Last year granted capital. Marquee Ventures, a subsidiary of the Chicago Cubs, has also invested.

Houston Rockets Forward Kevin Durant, Arizona Cardinals Offensive Lineman Kelvin Beachum, former All-Pro Wide receiver Larry Fitzgerald and Hall of Fame Quarterback Joe Montana who also invested in the Serie A round.

Fitzgerald, who runs his own risk capital company and has made about 150 investments at an early stage since 2013, said he was attracted to REC because he grew up with countless hours in recreational centers in the Minneapolis area. He said he understands the efforts that recreational directors need to make things run smoothly.

“You go to these places, and they are drastically understaffed,” Fitzgerald said in an interview. “You have two or three people who work, try to organize all these activities and events and things that are going on. And you are like:” Man, this can easily be solved with some technical solutions. ” It just jumped to me as something that I wanted to show interest. “

REC was founded in 2022 by Birju Kadakia and Rachel Williams, who worked together in the middle of the 2010. Kadakia was later director of product management at the Athletic, a sports media company that acquired the New York Times in 2022 for $ 550 million, while Williams worked in sales and marketing at Masterclass, a streaming platform for online classes that has collected $ 461 million since the launch in 2015.

Williams said that parents she knows often complain about the difficulty of signing their children for recreational lessons or summer camp. The purpose of REC, she said, is to offer software that is comparable to other popular consumers apps such as Uber, who use people to book car journeys or order food delivery.

“We are always talking about how we can feel our facility books to book an Airbnb?”, Said Williams, who is Rec’s President. “How do we ensure that when a parent signs up on the registration day, this is not 25 clicks to be able to pay?”

REC was launched with his first customer at the beginning of last year and is currently working with Parken and Recreation Departments in more than 50 communities in 12 states. The company did not disclose its income or appreciation after the latest financing round, but it competes in a busy area of ​​more established software companies that serve recreational departments, including Actidsnet, Omnify, CommunityPass and Recedsk.

The recreation department in Torrance, California, a suburb of Los Angeles, was one of the first customers of REC. Torrance started to use REC for booking tennis and pickleball rights at the beginning of last year before switching to REC for all activities of the city. The city had used its previous seller for about 15 years.

“Often what happens in the industry is that you are going to these deals and then you sign up with these platforms, and sometimes it is simply easier to try to search and continue finding a new (supplier) with the mistakes,” said Garrett Craig, Recreation Services Manager of Torrance. “They are often so similar, but that is where REC distinguishes itself. They are so different and out of the box in how they are willing to accommodate cities and take the city’s point of view, which in turn takes the point of view of the customer first.”

REC has recently concluded an agreement with the Apex Park and Recreation District, which serves 142,000 inhabitants in and around Arvada, Colo, a suburb of Denver. Jeff Glenn, executive director of Apex, said that the department had been with his old seller for four years. When Apex went to the market for a new software supplier, six companies offer on the contract.

Glenn said that REC costs “considerably more money” than the old software supplier of APEX, but he noted that “we think it is worth the investment” because REC can help make booking via a website or mobile app and Apex can also help follow his financial reporting. APEX continues to use its current software, but is planning to completely switch to REC at the end of February of next year.

REC currently has more than 30 employees, mainly in product design and technical roles. The company plans to use the series A financing to improve its software offering and to hire more staff.

“The goal for us with this raise was to really invest in great technology,” said Kadakia, who is CEO of REC. “We think about what it takes to build something that parks and REC departments, the coaches and the community can serve.”