Gymdesk Acquires Smoothcomp, Connecting Training and Competition for Martial Arts and Combat Sports

Gymdesk, the gym management platform for martial arts schools and independent gyms, today announced its acquisition of Smoothcomp, the competition platform behind roughly 200 tournaments every weekend and used by more than 80,000 academies worldwide. Gymdesk and Smoothcomp are now one company, and today they launch Smoothcomp Connect, the first product built by the combined team. The acquisition was completed earlier this year. Financial terms were not disclosed.

The combination connects the software thousands of gyms use to run their business with the platform used by athletes and tournament organizers around the globe.

Until now, the grounds where an athlete trains and competes have existed as completely separate worlds.

“We operate by the mantra of ‘less admin, more members,’” said Alex Cuevas, CEO of Gymdesk. “When martial arts gym members compete, they stay longer. Tournament participation is great exposure for gyms—it helps with gym member retention as well as attracting more members, but gym software has always only managed what happens inside the gym. Competition, where many members measure their progress, happened in a separate system the gym never saw,"

Athletes found events on Smoothcomp, but coaches managed their teams through texts and group chats. It was hard to know who had signed up, who had paid and who was actually competing. Results ended up in notebooks, spreadsheets or nowhere at all.

"Smoothcomp is where the sport competes,” said Cuevas. “Connecting it to the system where gyms train gives coaches the full picture of every athlete for the first time, and it's the foundation for everything we build next.”

Smoothcomp Connect launches today for every martial arts gym on Gymdesk, and includes functionality like:

- Find Events: Smoothcomp events appear inside Gymdesk, filtered by sport, date and distance, and coaches endorse the ones they want their team to enter.
- Register in Seconds: Members register from a form pre-filled with their Gymdesk details, listed under the correct gym every time.
- Record Achievements: Results and podiums flow back to the gym's dashboard and each member's profile, alongside belt rank and attendance, including competition history from before the gym connected.

Smoothcomp Connect is included in every Gymdesk plan. Any coach at a Smoothcomp event can also use the Gymdesk Coach Companion, a free iOS and Android app that assigns a coach, assistant or parent to every athlete and flags any match without one.

Smoothcomp grew out of the sport itself. In 2006, co-founder Martin Janson started a small tournament in Stenungsund that became the Swedish Open, one of Northern Europe's largest jiu-jitsu events.  

In parallel, co-founder Ricard Carneborn built the Nordic Open, and the collaboration between them grew out of a friendly rivalry between the two events.

Co-founder Martin Varghult built the registration tool that ran the Swedish Open—and in 2015, the three launched Smoothcomp.

Today, it runs registration, brackets and scoring across jiu-jitsu, wrestling, judo and other combat sports for organizers and federations including ADCC, NAGA, Grappling Industries, UFC BJJ, AJP and USA Judo.

"We built Smoothcomp because we were the ones standing at a folding table trying to run a tournament off a spreadsheet," said Martin Janson, CEO and co-founder of Smoothcomp. "As one company, we keep building for organizers and athletes, and we can finally reach the gyms where those athletes train every day. For organizers, that means more teams registering from the software their gyms already use."

Smoothcomp continues to operate under its own brand, led by its founders, and organizers keep running their events on Smoothcomp as they do today. Smoothcomp Connect starts with martial arts, with more sports to follow.

"This is the kind of combination we look for in vertical software: a product customers run their business on, connected to a network the whole industry already relies on," said Reed Edwards, Principal at Five Elms Capital. "Together, Gymdesk and Smoothcomp have a reach no one else in this category has, and Smoothcomp Connect shows what the two teams can build."

About Gymdesk

Gymdesk is gym management software for martial arts schools, fitness studios and independent gyms. Founded in 2016, it runs billing, scheduling, attendance, member management and competition for more than 4,500 gyms in 34 countries. Gymdesk is a Five Elms Capital portfolio company. Learn more at gymdesk.com.

About Smoothcomp

Smoothcomp is the competition platform for martial arts and combat sports. Founded in 2015 in Stenungsund, Sweden, it powers registration, brackets, scoring and results for roughly 200 tournaments every weekend and is used by more than 80,000 academies worldwide. Smoothcomp is a Gymdesk company. Learn more at smoothcomp.com.

Media Contact

Hannah Clark, Content Marketing Manager, Gymdesk—hannah.c@gymdesk.com

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