€2.2m · Seed · Software · Sofia, Bulgaria
Sofia-based 1club has raised €2.2m in seed funding from LAUNCHub Ventures and BrightCap Ventures to expand its software for sports clubs, gyms and studios. The company announced the financing on 1 October; The Recursive reports that the round closed in August.
1club says the capital will support product and AI development, team and service growth, and faster international expansion. The Recursive says its commercial focus includes the US, Canada, UK, Ireland, New Zealand and Singapore.
Joining club operations with member discovery
Sports venues often manage memberships, schedules, payments, member communication, marketing and websites through separate systems. 1club combines those functions in a management platform for operators, while its consumer-facing 1club Sports Network lets people discover venues and book activities.
The two products create a specific commercial mechanism. The management software gives 1club a route into a venue's daily operations and inventory; the network can then expose that availability to prospective members. Unlike a marketplace that controls the customer relationship from the outside, 1club says venues remain free to list on other networks. That approach may make adoption easier for independent operators, but its value still depends on maintaining accurate schedules, payments and member data across both sides.
The company says businesses in more than 40 countries use 1club across more than 10 sports and activities, including tennis, padel, climbing, martial arts, Pilates and yoga. The Recursive separately reports paying customers in more than 10 countries and an eight-person team. Those are company-reported traction figures rather than audited metrics, but they show the product has moved beyond a single local market.
A second vertical-software playbook
Co-founders Miroslav Miroslavov and Martin Kirov previously worked together at OfficeRnD, the coworking-management software company founded by Miroslavov. The Recursive reports that OfficeRnD reached roughly 3,000 customers in more than 150 countries, giving the pair experience with software for businesses that manage physical venues, recurring memberships and shared resources.
1club is applying that operating-system model to a broader and more varied sports market. The immediate test is whether one product can serve venues with different workflows without losing the depth that makes vertical software useful. Its connected network adds another dependency: attracting more venues improves consumer choice, while useful consumer demand can make the operating product more valuable to venues. The seed round funds that expansion, but the durable proof will be whether 1club can turn international usage into repeatable onboarding, retained paying customers and bookings that benefit operators rather than merely adding another acquisition channel.
