Can padel help cure the modern loneliness epidemic? That’s the vision of a new AI-powered tool that matches padel partners by personality as well as their Playtomic ratings.
ClubLe, co-founded by award-winning tech CEO Vessela Clewley, harnesses users’ data and advanced personality research to match up new partnerships on the 20×10, whether they’re for friendship, romance, networking or simply a well-matched game with good vibes.
There’s no app and no swiping. Instead, ClubLe uses psychological research to match people on intent, energy and context, rather than keywords and filters.
First of all, new partners are matched on a basic level by location, their stated competitive level and availability; then their compatability is decided by their responses to questions that assess their openness to new experiences, conscientiousness, extroversion, emotional stability and more.
Once connected, both parties have a video call and can then decide to share information and meet up to play. ClubLe handles the logistics.
After their match, both parties give feedback which offers the algorithm information about their reliability (did they turn up? Were they on time? Was their stated playing level accurate?) as well as more detailed and nuanced personality data to inform their next match-up.
ClubLe is currently being road tested by a few hundred people at several London padel clubs including The 108 in Brent Cross. It’s expected to be launched in October.
“The whole idea was to use AI for good…”
“This is our pitch to do something about the loneliness epidemic,” CEO Clewley (who previously worked at Hopin, WeWork and Uber) told The Padel Paper.
“The whole idea was to use AI for good, getting people motivated to get out and experience the real world. ClubLe can use any activity, but we decided to start with padel because I started playing a year ago and loved it.”
ClubLe are testing different financial models including subscriptions and per-connection payments, and also see potential in a B2B offering where clubs use it as a community management system.
“It’s about quality over quantity,” explains Clewley. “Our users have a great game and form deep relationships with like-minded people. What happens next is up to them.”
Readers of The Padel Paper can get three months free access to ClubLe!
Head to the ClubLe home page and use code: PADELPAPER
