Fairgrounds Racket Club has secured financing to help fund its pickleball and padel-court expansion program across Canada

The company announced that it has closed a Series A financing round led by Back Forty, Canada’s first firm created to invest exclusively in the Canadian consumer and retail sectors.

The expansion program is slated to begin this fall. Fairgrounds, a free-to-join racket club, is aiming to tap into surging participation that has resulted in demand for courts far outstripping supply. At the same time, Fairgrounds is helping landlords fill large vacancies in malls across the country as retail real estate dynamics change significantly largely due to the effects of omnichannel shopping.

“Fairgrounds is tapping into one of the most powerful lifestyle shifts we’ve seen in Canadian recreation in decades,” said Tim McGuire, a Back Forty co-founder. “What excites me is not just the growth of pickleball and padel, but Fairgrounds’ ability to build clubs that people truly want to be a part of – accessible, welcoming, and designed with community in mind.”

In conjunction with his firm’s investment, McGuire is joining Fairgrounds’ board.

Fairgrounds is preparing to open seven new facilities across Canada in fall 2025 and early 2026.

The locations include:

• Fairgrounds Capilano Mall (North Vancouver, B.C.)
• Fairgrounds Bower Place (Red Deer, Alta.)
• Fairgrounds Cataraqui Centre (Kingston, Ont.)
• Fairgrounds Whitby (Whitby, Ont.)
• Fairgrounds Centre on Barton (Hamilton)
• Fairgrounds Ottawa
• Fairgrounds Kitchener (Kitchener, Ont.)

The North Vancouver and Red Deer facilities will be the company’s first in B.C. and Alberta, respectively.

Fairgrounds was co-founded by Drummond Munro, the co-founder of small-format grocery-store chain Superette and Matt Rubinoff, the founder of Stackt Market, which uses shipping containers to build public markets. Since launching in 2022, Fairgrounds has grown to six locations across Ontario, serving about 60,000 members.

Pickleball is a fast-growing leisure sport that incorporates elements akin to tennis, badminton and ping pong. The game is played on a small tennis-like court and players use odd-shaped paddles, rather than the oval ones deployed in ping pong, and a whiffle ball.

Padel is a sport played on a surface that is about one-third the size of a tennis. Matches involve doubles, rather than, singles competitors. The game is played with a perforated racket and tennis-like ball.

Munro repeated his firm’s often-aired claim that Fairgrounds is taking a different approach to racket-club development, building from the ground up rather than through franchising.

“As long-time leaders in this space, we’re not hopping on a trend; we’ve been at it since 2022, bringing deep consumer-retail expertise to create something truly unique for Canada’s players and communities,” said Munro.

More and more pickleball courts are coming to commercial properties across the country. Fairgrounds is working with developers across the country to install courts at their sites.

The company plans to open 30 additional locations by 2027 and says that it will be Canada’s largest pickleball and padel court network by year-end 2025.

Image: CNW Group/QuadReal Development