We Have to Build this Together" – Gabriel Perez-Krieb on Padel’s Future in the USA

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In this episode of our RacquetX 2025 Interview Series, Cesc and Julian sit down with Gabriel Perez-Krieb—Executive Chairman of Chosen Foods, Chairman of Taktika Padel, and owner of the San Diego Stingrays Padel team.

Gabriel shares his vision for growing the sport of Padel in the USA, highlighting the importance of collaboration over competition. With years of executive leadership under his belt—from serving as Mexico's Trade Commissioner for the U.S. to running companies in tech and consumer goods—Gabriel brings a unique business and global perspective to the sport.

He dives into the current state of Padel investment in the U.S., how he's leveraging his experience to build scalable Padel ventures, and why he believes there’s room for everyone to succeed in this space. If you're interested in the business of Padel, this episode is a must-watch.

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Hey, Julian & Cesc here, and we're
here at RacquetX X with a true

Padel pioneer, the Hugh Mino.

He's an a brilliant mind.

He's helping to push this
sport here in the United States

very uniquely and amazingly.

Uh, Gabriel Perez-Krieb

Three things.

Padel, MBA.

Tica, uh uh, San Diego sting rates.

Uh, gon cup.

Gon cup.

Oh my God.

Wow.

Uh, what else am missing?

Anything?

Yeah, you're

missing, uh, did you
The Padel fund racket.

X racket X. We invested in racket
X and Tactica equity tactic.

Everything that we cannot disclose
yet, but we're on our way.

So let's get ready for an amazing podcast.

So let's start.

How did you got this crazy
idea to start doing Padel 360?

So I wish I could tell you it
was a great business plan that we

thought for it for many, many years.

Far from it.

Uh, this is a passion project.

We started with one court in
my house in San Diego that the

city, uh, closed your, closed it
because I did it without permits.

Uh, join the club, man.

It seems like everybody's

doing

that.

So, uh, during COV we were using it 9:00
AM in the morning to 10:00 PM at night.

The neighbors got pissed at me, uh, and
they ratted me to the city, which I later

sent them a case of wine because it's the
best thing they could have done because

that got me into the business of Padel.

Wow.

So that led me to invest in
a couple of courts in a local

club that I did a joint venture.

The idea was just to have
somewhere to play, and that

led to one to another thing.

We expanded that to seven courts.

Then we did six other joint
ventures around California.

We were able to invest in the
PPL with the San Diego Stingrays.

We were investor number two.

Um, and we just saw the potential that
Padel has, uh, and opportunities to

invest started to appear in front of us.

So we started saying yes to them.

Um, the next one was gon uh, we were
very fortunate to get introduced to Ro.

Wow.

And Leo Messi, uh, I want
to be very transparent.

I don't think we're gonna see
Leo Messi in the next three years

while he's still playing soccer.

Uh, so Leo Messi is a partner
of RO in Crew eSports.

Okay.

And we partner with Crew eSports.

So yes, Leo Messi is in the cap
table, but he's not actively

involved Indirect, but, but.

Makes that 10 times over.

Yeah, I mean, he's really actively
involved, so we partnered with

him for the GON cup and we were
very blessed to have won it.

Congratulations my friend.

I saw it.

I saw it.

Congrats buddy.

Yeah, so that was probably one of the most
exciting weeks of my life because we also

own professional baseball teams in Mexico.

And we won the Mexican
championship that same week.

Wow.

So it was just an incredible week.

A great week, huh?

Incredible week.

Um, so when we had all of these
investments that were all over

the place, uh, we have a lot
of experience operating funds.

We have, uh, a FinTech, uh, specific,
uh, private equity fund that

we've been running for five years.

Wow.

We have over 50 investments there.

Wow.

Uh, and three and a half years ago
we started what is now the biggest

Latin American food centric fund,
and we have 13 investments there.

We've evaluated over 400
companies in the food space.

Wow.

Food and beverage.

Uh, so is that chosen foods
that No, that's another

thing we have in the family.

So you got your

hands in everything.

We have a lot of hands.

We're very

active, but, uh, chosen foods
is one of our, uh, core.

Companies, uh, wage where the 65% of the
worldwide avocado oil market is ours.

Uh, that's part of our core business.

Our core business is food.

So food fuels all of our
passions, which are sports.

Um, and through chosen foods,
we've been supporting the

development of Padel in the us.

We've supported the national teams,
we've supported the national circuit.

Uh, we supported the USPA.

You're very active on the USPA,
which I I really appreciate that.

Yeah.

And my act, my involvement in the
USPA was because my two boys, five

years ago, they were juniors, uh, and
they were playing in the junior team,

and I wanted to be close to them.

And the best way to be close to them
was be getting involved in who was

organizing the circuit, the tournaments,
and, and having representation.

So that's what led me to it.

But all of Padel has been led by passion,
and that passion led us to investing and

those investments with the experience
we have running private equity funds.

We said, okay, let's bundle
everything into a private equity fund.

Uh, let's raise additional capital
and let's go and build a 360

ecosystem that we can offer the whole
industry in the US to replicate.

And that's what we're doing.

We're just getting started now.

Gabby, you

mentioned that, um, that
uh, it's a passion project.

So when I hear that's usually it doesn't
make money, usually that's what I hear.

Yeah.

Is there a long term not the case.

Okay, good.

I'm glad.

So when I say

passion project is that we're developing
it through our passion for sports.

Okay.

But we have a fiduciary duty
to our limited partners.

Of course, when we were
doing it alone, we could.

Invest in things that were probably
not that profitable short term.

Okay.

But now that we're institutionalizing
everything, we have a commitment.

So we're not going to invest in
anything that we don't see either

short term or a path to profitability.

Right.

That excellent.

So that tell us, uh, the amazing, I
mean, I, I was so happy when I saw your

name behind the, you know, acquiring
Padel MBA, why, and how's that going?

So I think there is two bottlenecks for a
Padel to growth in America or anywhere.

It's access to courts
and access to coaches.

Correct.

And access to managers of facilities.

Yeah.

Uh, so those are the three short
term bottlenecks that we see.

And obviously developing the community,
but if you don't put courts, you'll

never develop the community or,

or good.

Or develop good coaches

or develop good coaches.

And, uh, we, the opportunity was there.

Uh, we've known Padel MBA through
the USPA for many, many years.

We know the presence they have worldwide
and we know the structure and the

content they have built, which we
evaluated all of the coaching platforms,

and nobody has built a database of
content at that level of quality.

So the opportunity was there.

It was a no brainer for us.

That's probably out of the investments,
the one that was a no brainer.

And what we wanna do now with Padel
MBA is change the way Padel MBA

has been operating and truly go
for high quality certifications.

Not certify anybody that can pay,
but certify anybody that has the

criteria to be a certified coach.

Because if we're gonna be putting coaches.

Certified by Padel MBA into the market.

They have to be very good coaches.

Otherwise they can pay
for a training seminar.

Right, but not a certification.

So will there

be stages then?

Because the stage, the tructure is already
there, we just have to follow it because

there's not enough coaches to start with.

So imagine if you have to limit.

The coaches coming out with
certifications, so I assume you're gonna

have other stages like okay, there's
a begin stage or you're not a coach.

We have four stages.

Okay.

There's beginner, intermediate events,
junior, I mean, coaches for juniors.

Yeah.

To be able to certify coaches
to train our juniors here in

the US There's not many yet.

No, there's none yet.

None.

To be honest.

None actually.

None.

None.

Uh, that's why my kids were in
the national team now because

they were great Padel players.

Uh, we, we have very limited juniors.

We have very limited seniors.

Yeah.

Uh, we have very limited
players right now.

I mean, we have 2000 players
in the USBA database.

Yeah.

Right.

That, that are competing.

That's nothing.

That's nothing.

Going in a 300 million Yeah.

Uh, space.

30 million playing tennis.

Uh, I hear num extraordinary
numbers on pickleball players.

There's a lot of work to do.

So that is the mission.

Will you wanna certify coaches?

That are worthy of a seal of certification
because the responsibility is putting a

coach in front of a consumer, a customer.

And if you're putting a coach in
front of a customer and he has

a bad experience, Padel looses.

Yeah.

He is not going back.

Correct.

Not going back.

So, uh, but you, you guys acquire only,
uh, panel MB for the US or worldwide?

Worldwide.

We acquired, we cleaned
the whole cap table.

Wow.

So we acquired all of Padel MBA, we
left, uh, shares for the operating team.

We believe in having the operating
team, the CEO, the CFO, and the leaders

of the company that are operating
it to be part of the cap table.

So we left the part of the cap table
for the founder and the operator

and everything else we acquired.

So, uh, now the, the, the
headquarters are moving to the

US headquarters are staying in
Spain, where the knowledge base is.

Uh, and we're opening offices in the
US to attend the us but remember,

Padel, NBA is in 50 countries.

Yeah.

It's not just us, right?

We have to attend the whole
ecosystem where it already is.

My personal focus is to turbocharge us.

Okay.

So let's talk about the new
investment fund and the name of

it and what is the vision and
where do you guys want to take it?

So, uh, it's called T Equity.

We're very creative that way.

So we had tactical Padel, so
we said, okay, tactical equity.

Uh, so yeah, not very creative, uh, name
wise, but, uh, the objective is to invest

in five verticals, infrastructure, number
one and first most because we need to

be able to, one, we have a mission of
putting 1000 courts that we operate.

That's a long-term vision.

Midterm is 200 courts in California.

So we're starting to California.

We're already in the 30.

We have 35 courts already Padel
operated by us and 20 more that

we've sold to clubs that could be
considered competitors of ours.

But I, I don't see
anybody as a competitor.

I think we're all building this.

So we have the infrastructure
part of it, uh, which is JVs.

Uh, we have three models, JVs, so we
partner with universities, resorts.

Uh, sport complexes and we put a
hundred percent of the investment.

We operate Padel and pickle, and
we monetize Padel and pickle.

Uh, the other one is our
own flagship, uh, clubs.

Tactica, Tactica, flagship Clubs.

We haven't, we're doing the first one in
Los Angeles that's gonna open hopefully by

the summer, and that's a hundred percent
owned and operated by us, not a jv.

So we can show the club experience.

And the other Vertigo.

The other component is
Padel as a service.

All the acquisitions that we're
doing, we're bundling it together

and offering a rent pay as you go,
uh, option to whoever wants to put

a club in the whole United States.

We'll fund everything for you
and you'll pay us as a service

as you go ramping your club.

So we'll go on the risk with you.

We'll take the risk.

We'll put the cords, the software, the
vending machines, uh, the certification,

the tournaments, the leagues, the
everything we're investing in.

We'll put it at your service.

That's amazing.

That's amazing.

So that's infrastructure.

The other vertical is technology.

I, my background is in technology
and I believe a lot in technology.

So we're investing in technology
platforms that power Padel.

Uh, we've already closed several of them.

Padel, NBAI see it more as a technology
platform because of how it's done.

Mm-hmm.

Um, the other vertical
is professionalization.

Uh, we wanna be very, very
connected to the professional world.

So the national teams, um,
definitely we're gonna be

supporting the national players.

Uh, we already do that through the USPA.

Uh, we're gonna be, we've already
invested in the Duke Professional

Leagues that we can invest.

You cannot invest in it Premier.

But you can invest in gon we have
a team, we can invest in PPL.

We have a team and that gives us
connectivity with the players.

And we're building a tactical
equity ambassador program

with the professional players.

The top 30, uh, some
of the top 30 players,

uh, uh, Gabrielle, I
mean, this is so exciting.

I mean, this is only the beginning,
only the, i, I mean, we're here,

we're pushing the same boat.

We all are, we all are

on the same team,

and it's gonna start going faster
and faster and, and, and, uh, I

truly appreciate for your time.

I know it's, it is very short
and, uh, we'll keep talking.

I love what you guys are, hear
the excitement in your voice.

Don't get me started.

I love to be in the court.

I

love to be in a, a board meeting.

I love to be talking with the players.

Yeah.

I feel understanding what they need.

I love to be talking with the,
everybody in the ecosystem.

It's an amazing ecosystem.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And I think if we have to
learn something from tennis and

pickleball, it has to be about we.

Yeah.

It cannot be about I. Yeah,

yeah.

We have to build this together.

Yeah.

I mean, if I wanna build 1000
courts and there's a hundred

thousand courts that can be built
in this country, I'm going for 1%.

Right?

There's space for all of us.

And if we do it together, if
we collaborate, if we join

forces, I mean, see this.

We have Premier joining
forces with Racket X. Right.

Having an event next door to each other.

Yeah.

And just promoting Padel in the us How?

How impressive is that?

You don't see that often

for all viewers.

Our listeners, we're in this together,
so let's keep pushing Padel Forward,

not only in the US but worldwide.

And Gabrielle, what a great pleasure.

Pleasure.

Thank you so much.

Congratulations.

Okay.

Thank you.