Trampoline park brand GraVity springs growth plans into action with £5m investment

GraVity, the trampoline park brand, has received a £5m investment from an EIS fund through Guinness Asset Management, an investment management firm.

Headquartered in Castleford, GraVity was founded by entrepreneurs Harvey Jenkinson and Michael Harrison in 2014.

The duo built GraVity’s first trampoline park in Xscape Yorkshire, which opened its doors in February 2015.

Since then, GraVity has opened three further trampoline parks in Riverside, Norwich; St Stephens, Hull and Lockmeadow, Maidstone and has plans to double in size with four further parks in prime locations.

The investment will enable GraVity to expand its presence across the UK with these four new locations, as well as make improvements to existing parks to introduce new activities and increase capacity.

GraVity provides trampoline parks in high footfall leisure and retail locations and attracted over 500,000 bouncers in 2016. The business, which currently has 220 employees, had revenues of £7.5m in 2016 and is targeting revenues in the region of £20m within two years.

GraVity offers a timetable of activities, including corporate group bookings, competitive team sports, fitness classes, parties and parent and toddler sessions as well as quieter smaller classes for the disabled.

To date, GraVity has been principally financed by its founding directors along with Simon Whicker, previously of KPMG.

Michael Harrison, co-founder and chief operations officer, said: “We have made significant progress since opening our first trampoline park.

“From sleeping on the trampolines at night and working 16 hour days to build our first park, we are now a profitable business and the only trampoline park operator to focus on desirable high footfall retail and leisure locations.

“We are excited about our new parks planned for this year and continue to look for new prime locations to grow our business.”

Harvey Jenkinson, co-founder and chief executive officer, added: “I am extremely excited about the future of GraVity and, following this investment, we are looking forward to capitalising on the huge growth potential across the UK and establishing ourselves as the number one branded trampoline park operator in the UK.”

Malcolm King, investment manager, Guinness Asset Management Ltd, commented: “We have been very impressed by the founders, Harvey and Michael, who have grown GraVity into one of the UK’s leading trampoline park operators.

“We are delighted to have completed our investment into GraVity that will be used to fund the company’s next four parks and help the company realise the next stage of their growth ambitions.

“This demonstrates our ongoing ability to source and deliver high quality investments for our EIS investors.”