Huppa raises €1m to grow in the Netherlands and Belgium

Huppa secures €1m from Dutch founders and sports-tech investors

Amsterdam-based Huppa has raised €1 million in pre-seed funding for its software business serving gyms and class-based fitness operators, EU-Startups reports. The investment brings together founders of established Dutch technology companies and a specialist sports-tech investor.

According to EU-Startups, the group leading the round includes founders of Sentia, Keylane, TicketSwap, Moneybird and Revue. NL SportTech Ventures, an early-stage venture capital firm investing in Dutch sports technology founders, also participated.

A gym software business born from two founders’ frustrations

Sharief Mohamed and Gino Arendsz founded Huppa in 2024 after encountering problems with the software at their kickboxing gym and CrossFit box respectively, according to EU-Startups. Those experiences shaped a business focused on the practical needs of people running sports venues.

Huppa’s customer base is broader than conventional gyms. Its platform is designed for CrossFit operators, martial arts studios, yoga and Pilates spaces, and other businesses built around group exercise. That focus puts class management alongside the financial and membership functions needed to run a venue.

EU-Startups reports that Huppa combines member records, class timetables, payment handling, financial reporting and automated workflows in one platform. Bringing operational and financial information together is intended to help owners make decisions without piecing together data from separate systems.

For businesses operating more than one venue, Huppa offers scheduling across locations. Its dashboard tracks revenue, VAT and membership measures, while access permissions distinguish between coaches, managers and administrative employees. These features accommodate both an operator’s financial oversight and the different responsibilities of staff delivering classes.

The platform connects with payment provider Mollie and fitness aggregators Urban Sports Club and ClassPass, according to EU-Startups. Those integrations bring external payment and booking channels into the software used to manage the business.

Huppa also bases its charges on the number of active customers. EU-Startups describes a pricing approach intended to avoid additional module charges or unexpected upgrade costs, giving operators a clearer basis for assessing software expenditure as their customer numbers change.

Huppa says fragmented systems leave revenue opportunities untapped

In a company statement reported by EU-Startups, Huppa argues that older gym software creates excessive administrative work, separates information that owners need to assess together and makes potential revenue gains harder to identify. Its pitch is therefore about improving business decisions as well as reducing routine paperwork.

Huppa also says the group-fitness market is expanding quickly while becoming more complicated to manage. Alongside memberships and classes, operators must handle individual product sales and connections to third-party services. The company’s stated aim is to automate repetitive work so owners can devote more time to their communities, while giving members greater control over their own experience.

The startup’s longer-term product ambition is to use artificial intelligence to turn business information into suggested actions, EU-Startups reports. Huppa wants to help owners identify stronger-performing memberships, spot classes with scope to earn more and assess further growth opportunities. These are stated development ambitions rather than evidence of an already deployed AI advisory service.

Netherlands and Belgium come before wider European expansion

The new funding will support further platform development and team expansion, according to EU-Startups. That gives Huppa two immediate areas of work: improving the software and adding capacity within the business to support its plans.

Huppa intends to concentrate on the Netherlands and Belgium, with a target of serving at least 150 sports businesses by the end of 2027. Wider European expansion is an ambition for after that initial phase, rather than a simultaneous continent-wide rollout.

For fitness operators elsewhere in Europe, the distinction is important: EU-Startups’ report identifies two priority countries and a customer milestone, but does not set out subsequent launch markets or dates. It does not announce a UK entry plan. Huppa’s next expansion test is therefore its ability to establish a larger customer base in its chosen neighbouring markets.