Golfmanager, the company behind an eponymous golf-course management system, expects to generate €2 million in revenues this year, according to Palco23. At the moment, it is breaking even overall, even if operating in the red for periods during the financial year, and its founders’ philosophy is to reinvest profits.
The company was established in 2018 by Rafael Vera, Daniel Sillari, Ricardo Sillari and Santiago Corredoira, four veterans from Playtomic – which our readers might recognize as a pádel court-bookings app and as the compiler, alongside Monitor Deloitte, of the annual Global Padel Report. The initial capital, amounting to about €1 million, came from the founders themselves and the sale of their stakes in Playtomic.
They are quick to distinguish their product from their former company’s. Whereas Playtomic is B2B, Golfmanager is B2C. As the founders explain, there are many “Playtomics” to help golfers book course times. Golfmanager is designed for course management – things like collections and payment, vouchers, CRM and memberships, as well as bookings. For hardware, the system offers digital kiosks, kitchen displays, PDAs, tablets and printers. It can also connect to golf carts and ball machines. And the whole thing runs on the cloud.
Golfmanager has clients in, according to its website, “more than a dozen” countries, among them Spain, the UK, Greece, Italy, Thailand, the US, Mexico and countries in the Middle East. It plans this year to pursue its growth in its home country of Spain – which, according to its Royal Federation of Golf (RFEG), will soon have 300,000 registered golfers – as well as in neighboring Portugal and not too distant Italy.
Outside of Europe, however, it will be focusing on Mexico and especially the US, which, the founders observe, “has about 16,000 golf courses – that is, more than half of the courses in the world.” Operations in America could involve a first funding round, but for now, things remain in an indeterminate initial phase.
Many of the company’s expenses go toward payroll. It employs a staff of 25, spread between a variety of countries (Spain, Portugal, Italy, Mexico, Thailand, etc.).
