The deal memo includes:

• Deal overview
• Opportunity
• Competitive landscape
• Recipe for success
• Product
• Comparable companies
• Team
• Go-to-market strategy
• Risks
• Financial model

Sharp Alpha and DMG Ventures led the seed funding round. Other investors included David Blitzer, Simon Sports, and Active Partners.

The company’s team includes execs with experience in hospitality, food and beverage, augmented reality, and computer vision.

The slide also describes Poolhouse’s business and revenue streams:

What is Poolhouse?

Poolhouse is a software company building a cathedral to tech-enabled pool where gamified billiards tables serve as centerpieces to high-end competitive socialization paired with refined food & beverage. This forms the foundation for a higher-margin revenue mix that includes licensing white label technology and franchising.

Revenue streams

1. Poolhouse-operated venues
2. Franchise/Joint-venture
3. Licensing to 3rd parties

Poolhouse wants to be considered a “third place,” which is a social setting that’s separate from the home and the workplace.

It includes charts on the share of American 30-year-olds who live on their own, have ever married, live with a child, or own a home — all of which seem to be trending down from the 1980s through 2023.

It also shows the growth in Google search volume for the terms “how to meet people,” “meet new people,” “where to make friends,” and “feel lonely.”

The graph shows year-over-year site growth in the UK as of June for commercial businesses like cocktail bars, craft bars, casual dining restaurants, hotels, pubs, and nightclubs. According to the chart, “competitive socializing” outpaces them all.

The slide reads:

Mixed-use spaces anchored by entertainment are coveted by landlords

• Increase high-quality foot traffic
• Attract multiple tenant types
• Robust against the rise in online shopping

“A premium competitive socialization venue can have a hugely positive impact on a central London development. The success achieved by F1 Arcade at the ONC location has resulted in improved footfall for the shopping center, a significant halo effect sales increase for other operators, and notably higher rental asks for new incoming tenants.” — Jonathan Peters, the Global President at F1 Arcade (previously CFO at Richard Caring restaurants).

A graph compares site-level EBITDA margins for traditional F&B and competitive socialization.

These include lounges, sports, and arcades.

The slide includes a word cluster analysis for four categories in this space: training facilities, watering holes, arcade 2.0, and adult playgrounds.

It shows locations in London as of March.

The slide shows a map of competitive entertainment businesses in New York.

These traits include high food and beverage revenue, high visit frequency, conducive to events, and high-margin third-party opportunities.

The slide reads:

“Poolhouse is the most ambitious and scalable concept my brother and scalable concept my brother and I have created, representing the pinnacle of our lifelong work. Today, more people play Topgolf than on traditional golf courses in the US, and we aim to make an even greater impact on the world of pool.” — TopGolf and Puttshack founder, Steve Jolliffe

This slide reads:

Why Pool?
There is an opportunity to reshape how people perceive and play the game of Pool

The memo points to the recent growth of other companies, including Puttshack, F1 Arcade, Flight Club, and Five Iron Golf.

A chart breaks down the companies by when they were founded, where they’re based, number of locations, the cost per hour, alcohol association, athletic exertion, dwell time, and visit frequency. Some details are redacted.

The memo says Poolhouse has nine senior members with industry experience in addition to the Joliffes. They include Paul Hawkins from Hawk Eye Technologies, CEO Andrew O’Brien, and COO Matt Fleming.

The memo says this is the UK’s “busiest train hub.”

Sharp Alpha redacted these details in the version of the deal memo sent to BI.

The slide reads:

Revenue Streams

Poolhouse-operated venues will serve as a showroom for higher-margin, capex-light revenue streams

1. Owned & operated venues (US/UK)
2. Franchise locations (rest of the world)
3. Tech Licensing (hotels, casinos, pool halls)

The flagship locations will be in London and New York, the deck says. They will serve as showrooms for franchise opportunities and white-label customers, such as pool halls or hotels.

The details on “revenue assumptions” are redacted.

The forecasts are based on comparable companies. One graph shows net ROI for companies, including F1 Arcade, Bowlero, and Dave & Buster’s. Another shows site-level margins for earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization for companies such as Bowlero, TopGolf, and Puttshack.

Those metrics include table utilization, food and beverage cost of goods sold, licensing revenue, and capital expenditures per location.

It reads:

The most important metrics in the financial model are:

• Table utilization
• F&B COGS
• Licensing revenue
• Capex per location

We rebuilt the company’s model from scratch, arriving at 7-year estimates summarized on this page. Our diligence process suggested the company may have been a bit aggressive on its utilization projections but too conservative on the EBITDA contributions of the white-label revenue stream.

We specifically sensitize Year 7 EBIDTA below on two key dependencies, F&B gross margin and utilization rate, compared to our base case projections.

The charts in the slide are redacted.

The slide reads:

• Problem: The game of pool is desperate for reimagination at a time when demand for activity-based food & beverage experiences is surging.
• Solution: A cathedral to tech-enabled pool where gamified billiards tables serve as centerpieces for high-end competitive socialization paired with refined food & beverage.
• Traction: Construction is underway at Liverpool Street; multiple U.S. sites are under contract. These locations establish a foundation for a scalable, higher-margin revenue mix through technology licensing and franchising.
• Market size: The out-of-home entertainment market alone exceeds $100 billion within the $2.6 trillion global entertainment and media sector. The events market, including corporate events and weddings, is valued at over $160 billion, while the US full-service restaurant market surpasses $400 billion.
• Investment opportunity: We are leading the company’s $34M seed round alongside the Daily Mail Group, David Blitzer, and Simon Sports ahead of the London launch in Q1 2026, followed by U.S. openings, international franchising, and white-label tech deployments.
• Team: Led by Steve and Dave Jolliffe (TopGolf, Puttshack) and Paul Hawkins (Hawk-Eye), supported by nine senior executives from F1 Arcade, Swingers, TopGolf, Flight Club, and Puttshack.