Pomegra
1club, a Sofia startup from OfficeRnD's founders, raised a €2.2M seed from LAUNCHub and BrightCap to sell gym management software and run a consumer booking marketplace.
Key Takeaways
- 1club closed a €2.2M seed in August 2026 and announced it on October 1, 2026.
- LAUNCHub Ventures and BrightCap Ventures backed the round. Valuation is undisclosed.
- Funds go to expansion in the US, Canada, UK, Ireland, New Zealand and Singapore.
Lead
1club, a Bulgaria-based software company building tools for gyms, studios, courts and sports clubs, has raised €2.2M in seed funding from LAUNCHub Ventures and BrightCap Ventures. The round closed in August 2026 and was made public on October 1, 2026. The company did not disclose its valuation or the split between the two investors.
The startup comes from Miroslav Miroslavov and Martin Kirov, both veterans of OfficeRnD, the coworking-management software company. The company employs eight people. It reports paying customers in more than 10 countries and users in over 40, including Australia, Bulgaria, the US, Canada and several European markets.
What Does 1club Actually Sell?
1club sells two linked products: a management platform for operators and a discovery network for consumers. The operator side, 1club.ai, is an AI-native system covering memberships, payments, scheduling, marketing, websites and mobile apps for gyms, studios, courts and sports clubs. The consumer side, 1club.me, lets people find and book activities across sports.
The core product competes with established gym and studio management tools, and the category is crowded. The company's differentiator is the second layer. Businesses can list on multiple platforms at once through an open network, rather than being locked into a single marketplace.
Why Does a Marketplace Matter for Gym Software?
A marketplace matters because management software is a commodity, while demand aggregation is not. The founders have said the network itself could become more valuable than the underlying software, which is the same bet that drove booking and delivery platforms: own the customer relationship, and the vendor tools follow.
The sequencing is the point. Software gets 1club inside the operator's daily workflow and supplies inventory, such as class schedules and court slots. The consumer app then needs that inventory to be useful. Marketplaces with thin supply tend to stall, so the software acts as the supply engine.
The risk is familiar. Consumer acquisition is expensive, and gym operators have long resented aggregators that take a cut of their members. An open-network model is meant to address that complaint, but it remains untested at scale.
How Does the Founders' Track Record Shape This Round?
The round is small in absolute terms and large for its context. At €2.2M, it sits in the 92nd percentile of all-time seed deals for sports startups in Bulgaria, according to Dealroom's benchmarks. Investors are backing a team with a prior global software outcome more than a product with proven revenue, since 1club has not published revenue or customer counts.
OfficeRnD serves about 3,000 customers across more than 150 countries, which gives the founders direct experience selling vertical software to small operators internationally. That experience is relevant here, because gyms and studios are similarly fragmented, price-sensitive and spread across many regions.
The founders have framed the funding as a speed decision. "We decided it was better to move as fast and aggressively as possible and build the team and the product as quickly, and as well as we can," they said.
Who Backed It and What Does the Money Fund?
LAUNCHub Ventures and BrightCap Ventures are both Bulgarian early-stage investors, and the round does not name a lead. Proceeds will pay for marketing and expansion into the US, Canada, the UK, Ireland, New Zealand and Singapore, along with hiring and product development.
That target list is English-speaking and fitness-dense, which lowers localization costs. It also puts 1club against better-funded US competitors in the largest market. A team of eight with €2.2M has roughly two to three years of runway at typical European startup burn, but a paid expansion into six countries will shorten that quickly.
What Comes Next for 1club?
The next milestone is evidence that the marketplace works. Investors will look for operator retention on the software side, then for consumer booking volume on 1club.me that operators would not otherwise get. If both show up, a Series A conversation in 2027 or 2028 is plausible. If the consumer side lags, 1club remains a competent management tool in a crowded field.
The seed also shows continued appetite among Bulgarian funds for software companies built by repeat founders and aimed at export markets from the start.
Outlook
1club has €2.2M, eight staff, paying customers in 10+ countries and a plan to link gym software with a consumer marketplace. Funding is modest, the valuation is undisclosed, and the thesis depends on the network layer outgrowing the software. The next 12 months of expansion in six English-speaking markets will show whether that holds.
