For years, advanced officiating technology in racket sports belonged almost exclusively to elite tournaments. Precision came at a price few clubs, academies, or regional federations could justify. Hans Lundstam believes that imbalance created a structural gap in the sport, one that shaped the founding logic behind PlayReplay.

The Swedish company, which focuses on tennis and padel technology, has built an AI-powered smart court system that combines electronic line calling with live analytics and player tracking. But Lundstam frames the business less as a hardware company and more as an attempt to redefine access to performance data and officiating standards.

At the centre of that strategy is a simple idea: elite-level tools should not remain confined to professional events.

“Our mission,” Lundstam says, “is to democratise access to sports data.”

That philosophy has positioned PlayReplay in a category that sits somewhere between sports infrastructure, officiating technology, and performance analytics. The company’s systems are now active across hundreds of courts globally, with ambitions stretching well beyond traditional tennis.

When asked about the company’s earliest challenges, Lundstam returns repeatedly to one issue: the economics of precision.

In racket sports, the market has historically split into two extremes. At one end sit highly sophisticated officiating systems used at major tournaments. At the other are lower-cost alternatives that struggle to deliver consistent reliability.

Lundstam saw that divide as both a technical and commercial problem.

According to him, the challenge was never simply building accurate tracking software. The harder task was producing a system capable of meeting international standards while remaining affordable enough for ordinary clubs and academies.

PlayReplay’s response was to engineer its own Electronic Line Calling system around a lower-cost infrastructure model. Cameras mounted directly on net posts feed data into connected processing units, allowing the platform to track player and ball movement in real time.

The company eventually secured Silver certification from the International Tennis Federation, becoming the only approved tracking solution in its category for live line calling and internal and external reviews. Lundstam says the system delivers 99.9 per cent accuracy.

For him, the significance goes beyond certification itself. It represents proof that elite-grade officiating can exist outside the traditional tournament model.

When the conversation turns to the company’s broader product strategy, Lundstam avoids describing PlayReplay as a standalone software business.

Instead, he talks about courts as infrastructure assets that are gradually becoming intelligent environments.

The company’s ecosystem combines electronic line calling, tactical analysis tools, training data, connected touchscreens, and a mobile platform that allows players and coaches to review sessions remotely. Features once reserved for elite professionals are now being packaged for recreational and developmental use.

That positioning matters because it changes how PlayReplay approaches partnerships. Rather than selling isolated technology licences, the company is pursuing relationships with clubs, academies, federations, and tournament organisers looking to modernise sports facilities.

Lundstam argues that the opportunity extends beyond officiating accuracy. He sees three parallel outcomes driving demand: reducing disputes during matches, improving player development through data-driven coaching, and making courts more engaging for players and spectators alike.

The result is a business model that increasingly resembles infrastructure deployment rather than pure software distribution.

Asked to identify the company’s most important growth markets, Lundstam points to two regions immediately: North America and the Middle East.

The United States remains strategically significant because of scale alone. With more than 250,000 tennis courts nationwide, Lundstam views it as the largest addressable market for smart-court technology. PlayReplay has already gained traction there, supported by strong feedback from United States Tennis Association surveys.

At the same time, the company’s regional ambitions have accelerated sharply across the Gulf.

Saudi Arabia sits at the centre of that push, alongside the UAE, Qatar, and Egypt. Lundstam believes the rapid investment cycle surrounding sports infrastructure in the region creates unusually strong conditions for adoption, particularly as racket sports continue expanding.

Padel has become especially important in that equation.

The sport’s explosive growth has pushed PlayReplay to widen its roadmap beyond tennis. During 2026, the company plans to deepen its presence in padel while also entering pickleball, another category Lundstam describes as structurally attractive because of its rapid global growth trajectory.

For PlayReplay, the expansion is not simply about entering adjacent sports. It is about extending the company’s tracking and analytics platform across a wider universe of courts and users.

Pressed on the company’s financial position, Lundstam says PlayReplay’s valuation now exceeds $50 million, following a recent $12 million funding round led by Alfvén & Didrikson with participation from several international investment firms.

Despite continued conversations with investors, he insists the immediate priority is execution rather than fundraising.

Half of the company’s investment capital is being directed toward regional and international expansion, particularly across North America and the Middle East. The remainder is allocated to product development and research, including new tracking technologies and adaptation for additional racket sports.

That balance reflects Lundstam’s broader operating philosophy. Growth, in his view, cannot rely solely on geographical expansion or product innovation independently. The two have to move together.

The company currently reports between 600 and 700 courts either installed or contracted globally. Across its ecosystem, PlayReplay says it has tracked more than 300,000 matches and processed over 80 million electronic line calls in more than 30 countries.

Lundstam believes those usage figures matter as much as revenue growth because they create an expanding reservoir of performance and officiating data.

When asked specifically about Egypt, Lundstam describes the country as a strategic component of PlayReplay’s broader MENA expansion rather than a standalone market.

His approach appears deliberately cautious. Rather than rushing toward aggressive market entry, the company is prioritising operational milestones, strategic partnerships, and local execution capacity.

PlayReplay recently partnered with Söderhub, a regional bridge-builder focused on connecting Northern European companies with MENA opportunities. The partnership, led by entrepreneur Magdy Shehata, is intended to support market entry and relationship-building across the region.

Lundstam sees Egypt as increasingly relevant because of rising interest in modern sports infrastructure and technology adoption. But he also suggests the company’s regional strategy depends heavily on trust and proof of performance inside local courts and federations.

That emphasis on measured deployment mirrors the broader discipline visible throughout PlayReplay’s expansion plans.

Asked to reflect on Egypt’s wider startup landscape, Lundstam argues the ecosystem is entering a more mature phase.

In his view, the market has shifted away from prioritising startup volume toward evaluating sustainability, profitability, and operational resilience. He describes the past few years as a stress test shaped by rising interest rates, currency pressures, supply chain disruptions, and the broader contraction in venture funding globally.

Rather than weakening the ecosystem outright, he believes those pressures have forced companies to adopt more disciplined operating models.

For Lundstam, that transition matters because it creates healthier long-term conditions for technology businesses seeking regional scale. The companies likely to survive are no longer those optimised purely for growth narratives, but those capable of balancing expansion with operational durability.

That logic aligns closely with how PlayReplay itself has evolved.

The company’s growth story is ultimately not built around spectacle or hype. It rests on a narrower but harder proposition: taking technology once reserved for the sport’s biggest stages and making it commercially viable for everyone else.