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Topias Soininen

Co-founder & General Partner, Failup Ventures · 1 appearance on the record.

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investorfounderexecutivefailup.com ↗

Topias Soininen is a Finnish tech entrepreneur who co-founded Playven, a sports facility management and court booking platform acquired by Playtomic in 2020. He currently co-leads Failup Ventures, an early-stage venture capital firm investing in pre-seed and seed-stage startups across the Nordics and North America.

10statements → 7claims → 3claims resolved → 67%fully supported → 3.8/5average certainty → 2.1/5average debate potential → 3said about them ↓

2 supported 0 partly supported 1 contradicted 4 not checkable as stated how the 7 claims stand · each chip opens the sources

1 prediction · 6 assertions · 1 opinion · 1 disclosure · 1 what if · every statement was checked. The prediction and assertions are the 7 claims: statements the public record can support or contradict. 3 are resolved, and 4 name no date, number or outcome precise enough to check. Everything else (opinions, insights, what ifs, disclosures) can never be settled by the record, so it carries no assessment.

The record, in short

What the tape says about how Topias argues and how the claims held up. Everything they said, and everything said about them, is in the tabs below.

Their most notable supported claim

Assertion Supported
Soininen: Playven is a full club management system unlike ClassPass
“We're a full-on club management system for tennis and sports clubs, where you manage space bookings, lessons in clinics, coaches so it's a completely different product on the backend side compared to ClassPass.”
Topias Soininen Mar 3, 2025 ▶ 14:07 #44 Is This Sports App the Next OpenTable?

Their most notable contradicted claim

Prediction Didn’t hold up
Soininen expects to raise at a valuation above $4M in the fall
“I think you know, we, I believe we can raise money at a bigger valuation than four at this point. We just, you know, need to clarify that focus a little bit and that's what we're doing. So I think, you know, once we show that we'll be able to raise at a bigger…”
Topias Soininen Mar 3, 2025 ▶ 23:19 #44 Is This Sports App the Next OpenTable?

Expressed certainty vs assessment result

none yet certainty 1
none yet certainty 2
0% certainty 3
100% certainty 4
none yet certainty 5

weighted support: a fully supported claim counts one, a partly supported claim counts half. Each filled bar is clickable and opens exactly those claims; "none yet" means nothing said at that certainty level has resolved yet

Everything Topias Soininen said on the Pitch that made the record, most notable first. Filter by type, assessment or year in the ledger →

What-if
Soininen: Playven could have raised its bridge round at $8M
“We could have, ah, gone to them at eight and we probably should have, ah, we like.”
Topias Soininen Mar 3, 2025 ▶ 12:48 #44 Is This Sports App the Next OpenTable?
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Soininen: No HotelTonight or OpenTable for sports exists globally
“In the world, like there isn't anything like hotel tonight or open table for sports that doesn't exist anywhere in the world, really.”
Topias Soininen Mar 3, 2025 ▶ 18:00 #44 Is This Sports App the Next OpenTable?
Prediction Didn’t hold up
Soininen expects to raise at a valuation above $4M in the fall
“I think you know, we, I believe we can raise money at a bigger valuation than four at this point. We just, you know, need to clarify that focus a little bit and that's what we're doing. So I think, you know, once we show that we'll be able to raise at a bigger…”
Topias Soininen Mar 3, 2025 ▶ 23:19 #44 Is This Sports App the Next OpenTable?
Opinion
Soininen: Sports court booking can reach venture scale like OpenTable
“I completely disagree with that. A great example of this is, is open table. They started off as a booking system and then they become this billionaire billion dollar platform for a marketplace for finding a restaurant. So I completely disagree with that.”
Topias Soininen Mar 3, 2025 ▶ 24:31 #44 Is This Sports App the Next OpenTable?
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Soininen: Playven generates only $2,000 a month in revenue
“Revenue we're making about 2000 bucks a month right now.”
Topias Soininen Mar 3, 2025 ▶ 4:50 #44 Is This Sports App the Next OpenTable?
Assertion Supported
Soininen: Playven is a full club management system unlike ClassPass
“We're a full-on club management system for tennis and sports clubs, where you manage space bookings, lessons in clinics, coaches so it's a completely different product on the backend side compared to ClassPass.”
Topias Soininen Mar 3, 2025 ▶ 14:07 #44 Is This Sports App the Next OpenTable?
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Playven has processed almost 200,000 bookings across 180 clubs
“We've already processed over two, almost 200,000 bookings. We, ah, at 180 tennis clubs.”
Topias Soininen Mar 3, 2025 ▶ 2:33 #44 Is This Sports App the Next OpenTable?
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Playven spent zero dollars on user acquisition through May
“So up until May of this year, we haven't spent any money on user acquisition.”
Topias Soininen Mar 3, 2025 ▶ 10:21 #44 Is This Sports App the Next OpenTable?
Assertion Supported
Soininen: 14,000 US tennis clubs suffer from unused capacity
“At the same time, there's 14,000 tennis clubs in the U.S. That have a lot of unused capacity.”
Topias Soininen Mar 3, 2025 ▶ 2:15 #44 Is This Sports App the Next OpenTable?
Disclosure
Playven raised a $450K bridge round at a $4M valuation
“The latest we raised is like a 450,000 bridging round at a four million dollar valuation.”
Topias Soininen Mar 3, 2025 ▶ 12:05 #44 Is This Sports App the Next OpenTable?

The other half of the tape: Topias Soininen's own voice is left out of every number here. 3 statements on the record name them. every mention, with the transcript →

Statements about Topias Soininen, by other people (3)

Opinion
Diamond: Playven cannot successfully do both SaaS and a marketplace
“You're doing two things, and I don't think you can do both.”
Howie Diamond Mar 3, 2025 ▶ 16:02 #44 Is This Sports App the Next OpenTable?
Opinion
Manus: Topias Soininen lacks capacity to build a cross-sport platform
“But also, I don't think he has the capacity to build out a platform for all sports across, right, all venues.”
Jillian Manus Mar 3, 2025 ▶ 22:20 #44 Is This Sports App the Next OpenTable?
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Nadel: Playven only has 24 paying clubs after years of operating
“He's been doing this for a few years. He only has 24 clubs paying him.”
Phil Nadel Mar 3, 2025 ▶ 21:18 #44 Is This Sports App the Next OpenTable?

Appearances (1)

EpisodeDateSpeaking time
#44 Is This Sports App the Next OpenTable? Mar 3, 2025 10m
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