ATLANTA, GA – DECEMBER 16: Larry Fitzgerald #11 of the Arizona Cardinals pulls in this reception against Brian Poole #34 of the Atlanta Falcons at Mercedes-Benz Stadium on December 16, 2018 in Atlanta, Georgia. (Photo by Kevin C. Cox/Getty Images)
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Rec, a technology company serving the parks and recreation industry, has raised $11 million in a Series A funding round in which several former and current professional athletes participated. The company offers software and an app to help people enroll in sports classes and other programs, book tennis courts and gyms and make it easier for recreation directors to handle the influx of inquiries from residents.
Crosslink Capital, a Menlo Park, Calif., venture capital firm, led the Series A round, while existing investors such as NFX, Precursor Ventures and Long Journey Ventures that were part of the company’s $6.2 million seed round last year provided follow-on capital. Marquee Ventures, a subsidiary of the Chicago Cubs, invested, as well.
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 were among the athletes who invested in the Series A round, too.
Fitzgerald, who runs his own venture capital firm and has made about 150 early stage investments since 2013, said he was drawn to Rec because he grew up spending countless hours at recreation centers in the Minneapolis area. He said he understands the effort it takes for recreation directors to run things smoothly.
“You go to these places, and they’re drastically understaffed,” Fitzgerald said in an interview. “You have two or three people that are working, trying to organize all these activities and events and things that are going on. And you’re like, ‘Man, this could easily be solved with some tech solutions.’ It just really did jump out to me as something that I wanted to take interest in.”
Rec was founded in 2022 by Birju Kadakia and Rachel Williams, who worked together at Uber in the mid-2010s. Kadakia was later director of product management at The Athletic, a sports media company that The New York Times acquired in 2022 for $550 million, while Williams worked in sales and marketing at MasterClass, a streaming platform for online classes that has raised $461 million since its launch in 2015.
Williams said parents she knows often complain about the difficulty of signing their children up for recreation classes or summer camp. Rec’s goal, she said, is to provide software that is similar to other popular consumer apps such as Uber, which people use to book car rides or order food delivery.
“We’re always talking about how can we make our facility booking feel like booking an Airbnb?,” said Williams, who is Rec’s president. “How do we make sure that when a parent is signing up on registration day it’s not 25 clicks to get to checkout?”
Rec launched with its first client early last year and currently partners with parks and recreation departments in more than 50 communities in 12 states. The company did not disclose its revenue or valuation following the latest funding round, but it competes in a crowded field of more established software companies servicing recreation departments, including ACTIVENet, Omnify, CommunityPass and RecDesk.
The recreation department in Torrance, Calif., a Los Angeles suburb, was among Rec’s first clients. Torrance began using Rec for booking tennis and pickleball courts early last year before transitioning to Rec for all of the city’s activities. The city had used its previous vendor for about 15 years.
“A lot of times what happens in the industry is you get into these deals and then you sign on with these platforms, and sometimes it’s just easier to deal with the faults than try to search and go through the process of finding a new (vendor),” said Garrett Craig, Torrance’s recreation services manager. “A lot of times they’re so similar, but that’s where Rec is differentiating themselves. They are so different and so out of the box in how they are willing to accommodate and work with cities and take the city’s point of view first, which in turn takes the customer’s point of view first.”
Rec recently struck an agreement with the Apex Park and Recreation District, which serves 142,000 residents in and around Arvada, Colo., a Denver suburb. Jeff Glenn, Apex’s executive director, said the department had been with its old vendor for four years. When Apex went to the market for a new software vendor, six companies bid on the contract.
Glenn said Rec costs “significantly more money” than Apex’s old software vendor, but he noted that “we think it’s worth the investment” because Rec can help with making booking easier via a website or mobile app and can also help Apex tracks its financial reporting. Apex is continuing to use its current software but plans on fully transitioning to Rec by late February of next year.
Rec currently has more than 30 employees, primarily in product design and engineering roles. The company plans on using the Series A funding to improve its software offerings and hire more staff.
“The goal for us with this raise was to really invest in great technology,” said Kadakia, who is Rec’s CEO. “We think about what it takes to build something that can serve parks and rec departments, the coaches and the community, as well.”
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