Steve and Dave Jolliffe, the creators of Topgolf and Putshack, lobbied investors to give them $55 million to consolidate what they’ve done for golf, and their London flagship is the proof.
The growth round for Poolhouse, announced on Friday, was led by Bluestone Equity Partners, a private equity firm specializing in sports, media and entertainment. It marks the tenth investment from Bluestone’s first $350 million fund.
The prize, as Poolhouse sees it, is one of the oldest social games in the world. Cue Sports claims more than 200 million weekly players worldwide and an estimated industry market of around 35 billion, yet the sector has never been affected by technology.
The core of the business is BillyQ, a gaming system developed over six years by the team behind Hawk-Eye, the computer vision technology used to make Wimbledon calls and goal-line decisions in soccer. BillyQ overlays a responsive digital layer on the pool table, enabling interactive games, automated scoring and real-time player statistics.
There’s a canny piece of game design in there too. A dynamic handicapping model adjusts player ability, allowing teams of mixed abilities to compete on level terms, which is important when your customer is a career night rather than a league team.
For UK workers, this is an issue that deserves close attention. Poolhouse’s flagship location on Liverpool Street in London is open to strong customers and critical reception, and the company is reporting strong landlord interest in the US, including New York City and Nashville, as well as a franchise agreement with Signature Hospitality Group, Australia’s leading operator.
However, places are a shop window. The capital will primarily fund the rollout of BillyQ beyond Poolhouse venues into hotels, traditional pool halls, casinos and bars, and eventually into homes, building a recurring revenue platform over tens of millions of installed tables. In Britain’s thousands of pubs, clubs and halls with a table gathering dust, technology may come as a license proposition rather than a competitor.
“We set out to build Poolhouse because we saw the same opportunity in pool that we saw in golf: a popular, mass-participation game that could be revolutionized by technology, design, and a better player experience,” said Steve Jolliffe, founder of Poolhouse.
Bobby Sharma, founder and managing partner of Bluestone, said the division had “never before had such a high level of technology and data layer”, calling the deal a “compelling opportunity to sponsor exceptional operators in one of the largest participating sports divisions in the world”.
Andrew O’Brien, Poolhouse’s chief executive, said the company is “well positioned to accelerate our global growth and establish BillyQ as a core sports infrastructure around the world”.
The agreement also says something about where the entertainment money flows. Experience-led venues have proliferated as employers swap traditional entertainment venues for activity-based evenings, and investor appetite for the sector has returned, from Justin King’s £50 million hospitality fund to a wider revival of UK equity dealmaking.
Backers of Poolhouse already include DMG Ventures, Bolt Ventures, Active Partners, the first investor in Soho House, Sharp Alpha and Emerging Fund. Its leadership bench includes Ross Butler, former Gaucho CEO, Steve Lane, who helped scale Toptracer worldwide at Topgolf, and Hawk-Eye founder Paul Hawkins.
For SME founders, the lesson is familiar Jolliffe: take a game that everyone already knows, remove the fear, add a layer of technology, and capital often follows.
