Atlanta pickleball startup raises $2.5 million to expand business

Pickleball is the sport of short nets, small paddles — and now, big bucks.

Atlanta-based startup Pickleheads, an online pickleball court finder that helps the sport’s enthusiasts find a place to play, announced it has raised $2.5 million to help grow the company. The fundraising round was led by Atlanta venture capital firm Overline with participation from more than 65 smaller investors.

The raise comes as pickleball continues to grow in popularity, a trend started during the COVID-19 pandemic. The sport was invented in 1965 on an island off the coast of Seattle. Over the decades, it slowly spread but exploded after the COVID-19 lockdowns. In 2019, 3.5 million Americans had played pickleball at least once, according to data firm Statista. By 2023 that figure had almost quadrupled to 13.6 million Americans.

Brandon Mackie, chief operating officer and cofounder of Pickleheads, first picked up a paddle in 2021 after being a tennis player his whole life. The startup launched in March 2022.

“Pickleball was kind of the perfect way to get outdoors, get some exercise, socialize responsibly, and it became a real pandemic phenomenon,” Mackie told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. “But what was interesting is, you know, unlike bread making and some of these other things that sort of went away once the pandemic ran its course, pickleball didn’t stop. People got exposed to it during that time, but they kept going.”

As the sport’s popularity has grown, so has the number of pickleball courts and games. That’s where Pickleheads comes in. Users can type their ZIP code into the website and find places to play, games to join based on skill level and private instructors to polish their skills. Pickleheads is also the official court and game finder of the sport’s governing body, USA Pickleball.

Credit: Courtesy of the City of Atlanta

Credit: Courtesy of the City of Atlanta

Mackie, a Georgia Tech alumnus, said the startup plans to use the $2.5 million raised to grow its marketing and engineering teams, with an eye to hiring in Atlanta. He hopes Pickleheads becomes essentially the operating system for recreational pickleball, where any instructor or aspiring entrepreneur of the sport could run their entire business on the platform, from organizing round robins to offering lessons.

“Our goal is to become far and away the number one pickleball app on the planet,” Mackie said.

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