Czech duo Diblík and Hodboď build top padel social network

Former Forbes “30 Under 30” honoree Jiří Diblík, together with investor Tomáš Hodboď, is launching Ace — a vertical social network for players of padel, one of the fastest-growing sports in the world. Just six months after launching in Czechia, the service has gathered around ten thousand regular users — two-thirds of all Czech padel players.

Diblík already has a track record of successful startups: together with Ondřej Kopecký he founded the mental-health app VOS.health, which the American company Spring Health acquired last year. The parties didn't disclose the deal amount, but rumour put it at several million dollars. After the deal, Diblík worked for a while at Spring Health in New York, but corporate life wasn't for him, and he returned to Czechia to “build something of his own.”

That's how the tech group TBA came about, bringing together several AI projects, including the popular app Lively for tracking menstrual cycles, pregnancy and perimenopause, created together with Diblík's wife Bára — she too had made the Forbes “30 Under 30” list. In February, the Ace app joined TBA as well.

The idea for Ace grew out of Diblík's personal love of padel and the lack of a convenient service: as he puts it, it's like Strava for runners and cyclists, but for padel players. The app has a rating system, match history and matchmaking by skill level — instead of arranging games over WhatsApp or Facebook, as the Czech padel community used to do. A court-booking and club-management system will soon be added too — free for both clubs and players.

Ace's success caught the attention of Tomáš Hodboď, a partner at the investment group Miton, who previously headed Glami and Heureka and took part in Donio's success. Miton will invest several million crowns in the startup, and Hodboď himself will join the team to help take the app abroad — first to Poland and Slovakia, then to Germany, Austria and Switzerland.

Competition there is fierce: the global market is already dominated by the Spanish app Playtomic, valued at a quarter of a billion euros with roughly one and a half million monthly active users. Unlike its competitor, which makes money on transactions and subscriptions, the Czech Ace remains completely free for both players and clubs — its creators are betting not so much on technology as on the strength of community.