Sushidog investor pumps seven-figure sum into golf sim brand ahead of Open
A firm with investments in Sushidog and Smash Padel has pumped a seven-figure sum into a UK golf simulator company ahead of the Open Championship.
Middleton Enterprises, the family office of HomeServe co-founder Jeremy Middleton, will invest upwards of £1m into TeeGo, a simulator firm looking to drive growth in indoor golf.
The injection will see TeeGo expand from its current six to 20 sites by the end of 2028 as it looks to become “the largest dedicated indoor golf clubhouse network in the UK”.
The firm’s chief said that they expect more Londoners to be playing golf indoors than outdoors within a year. “Because it can be expensive,” Jay Patel added, “time consuming and there are fewer and fewer courses.”
Research from British golf’s governing body, the R&A, last year revealed an increase in the use of indoor golf simulators, with the all-star TGL Golf League showcasing hybrid technology in the sport.
TeeGo added that it was making use of good landlord deals in high streets to expand across the capital.
Indoor golf on the rise
The firm said that in the last year alone it has logged 6,000 rounds of golf played, an increase of 155 per cent on the previous 12 months.
Jeremy Middleton’s HomeServe was once a FTSE 100 company with the ultimate exit, to Brookfield, netting a total of £4.1bn.
London has seen a surge of interest in indoor sports venues, with TeeGo joined by the likes of Pitch in the golfing space, while pool, darts, curling and other sports have indoor, accessible spaces too.
Five Iron Golf recently landed in the capital as part of a £20m UK expansion, with Broadgate hosting its first site.
Patel added: “At TeeGo you can pick from more than 400 courses around the world and play 18 holes in 25 minutes.”
“They have built a model that genuinely brings new people into the game, rather than just capturing golfers who already play, and that will provide real defensibility as more operators enter the market,” Middleton Enterprises’s Julian Liban said.