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Fliegel, a former professional basketball player founded CoachUp to connect athletes to coaches in a mutually profitable relationship.
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Jordan Fliegel
Fliegel, a former professional basketball player founded CoachUp to connect athletes to coaches in a mutually profitable relationship.
By: Gali Raz.
Jordan Fliegel has recently announced that he has raised $6.7 million in second round funding round for CoachUp, his startup initiative. CoachUp is a Boston-based online network of private coaches for hire that Fliegel formed early in 2012.
The second round, which Fliegel plans to use to add individual sporting pursuits, such as dance, yoga and personal fitness to his online database of coaches, who till now have been focused on team sports only.
CoachUp’s national network of sports coaches, now numbering more than 9, 000 covering more than 60 sports, work with promising athletes to improve their skills through giving them the benefit of personalized instruction, something that budding athletes are not guaranteed to receive in a regular team training session.
According to Fliegel, CoachUp also provides talented coaches with a chance of getting both additional earnings and hands-on experience of dealing with athletes in the early stages of their careers.
In addition to an initial round of $2.7 million in seed money that CoachUp were awarded in November of last year, the company got off the ground thanks to winning the MassChallenge start-up competition that took place in the autumn of last year and with it, according to Fliegel, a much welcome $50, 000 prize. Mass Challenge operates one of the world’s largest incubator accelerator programs.
Jordan Fliegel recalls initially forming the basis of his idea which grew to become CoachUp while he was still in high school in Boston, and a promising young basketball player. Jordan’s camp counselor offered to take him on as an athlete and coach him privately. Coaching lessons that he recalls help him considerably to improve his game, to such an extent that they changed his life, paving the way for him to become a professional basketball player.
Since then Fliegel has not only taken advantage of the lessons that having a professional coach taught him, but also nurtured the realization that if young sports people with ambition and a desire to succeed were given the opportunity of private coaching, then they too could possibly build themselves a career in professional sports.
After the news of the second funding round broke Fleigel enthusiastically stated that it marked was a major milestone for CoachUp, confirming the company’s position as a leader in both the coaching industry and sports/fitness tech space.
“Powered by an incredible team, this round will continue to support CoachUp’s core mission of helping athletes reach the next level in their training and athletic pursuits.” Fliegel summed up
The new funding round was led by Point Judith Capital of Boston and General Catalyst Partners of Cambridge with other investors including Kayak founder Paul English, Boston Bruins president Cam Neely, former senator Scott Brown and former Zipcar chief executive Scott Griffith.
Jordan Fliegel graduated with a BA in Government & Philosophy from Bowdoin College, situated in the town of Brunswick, Maine.
After completing his degree at Bowdoin College, Jordan began his business career with venture-backed online marketplace, Zintro.com where he first learned how to to build a marketplace business.
After a stint with Zintro.com, Fliegel spent some time in Israel. Time which he put to excellent use through gaining an MBA at Tel Aviv University while starring as a professional basketball player for Hapoel Jerusalem, an Israeli Premier Division. Before returning to the states Jordan spend some time in Europe playing professional basketball.
After returning to the United States states Jordan started coaching privately himself and that’s when he had the idea for CoachUp.
Despite his busy schedule with CoachUp, Jordan still finds some time to coach aspiring basketball players, barely missing a weekend on the parquet.
