IT professionals quit jobs to bring trampolines to India for the first time – made Rs 32 Cr in profit from their indoor amusement brand

If you’ve ever been on a trampoline, you know what it feels like to defy gravity, fly for a few seconds, and then keep jumping over and over again to relive that experience.

But did you know that trampoline is also an Olympic sport? It involves athletes jumping up to 8 meters in the air, all the while performing engaging twists and somersaults.

Back in 2017, two friends decided to bring trampolines to India and set up high-quality indoor amusement centers that are fun, engaging, and high on utility. Their long-term vision? To drive awareness and bring Indians to the Olympic stage.

“Jitender and I had seen trampolines in the West while travelling for our IT jobs. This was the first time that we discovered their utility in the entertainment and sports sector. We began importing trampolines to India and ultimately started building our own manufacturing capabilities right here in India. Since then, SkyJumper has only grown,”Suneel Dhar, co-founder of SkyJumper, tells Startup Pedia in an exclusive interview.

Founded in 2017, SkyJumper is an indoor amusement park brand based in Faridabad, India. The brand was the first to establish a trampoline park in India. It currently has 20+ operational centers, including different recreational activities like soft play areas, bowling alleys, cafes, birthday party halls, and laser tag arenas.

HOW IT ALL BEGAN

Hailing from Faridabad, Suneel Dhar and Jitender Chhabra were working as IT professionals for over 15 years. They have held senior positions in companies like Tata Consultancy Services and Sapient.

Their jobs took them around the world, with the duo often travelling together to the United States of America and Europe. It was during these travels that they discovered the use case of trampolines and how they functioned in the sport and entertainment industry.

“We immediately had an idea: what if we could bring the trampoline experience to India? At the time, there were very limited recreation facilities for the urban audience. Think malls, multiplexes, and play zones that were either too childish or extremely commercial. Nothing blended in a way that could bring kids and their families together. We believed that trampolines could bridge the recreational gap,” Jitender Chhabra tells Startup Pedia.

The duo decided to quit their jobs and dedicate themselves to the indoor amusement industry.

Initially, Jitender and Suneel began importing home-use trampolines and exercise rebounders. They wanted to first test them out themselves and then decide on establishing a Trampoline Park in India.

“We were the first brand to establish a trampoline park in India. While we had a first mover advantage and a market to create from scratch, we also had to deal with a bunch of challenges. But safe to say, we had made up our minds,”startup founder Suneel Dhar affirms.

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JOURNEY AND CHALLENGES

In around 2016, SkyJumper’s journey began. One of the first challenges that startup founders Jitender Chhabra and Suneel Dhar had to navigate in the indoor amusement park industry was scouting for locations.

“What we were trying to build was entirely new to the Indian market. We had to identify suitable real estate, one that had a large space of at least 10,000 to 15,000 square feet. Another requirement was that it had to have a double-height ceiling of at least 22 feet. We would spend days just looking for locations and often had to make customer architectural layouts from scratch,”entrepreneur Jitender Chhabra says.

Another challenge was the heavy capital investment that the indoor amusement park industry demands. There was no proof of the concept being successful in India, so investors were resistant.

“Ultimately, we pooled Rs 2 crore from our savings,” Suneel mentions.

On September 21st, 2017, SkyJumper officially introduced the first-ever indigenously developed Trampoline Park in the city of Gurugram in India.

Soon enough, it received a lot of traction from kids, youth, and their families in the city.

With this, Suneel Dhar and Jitender Chhabra became pioneers in the space of trampoline amusement parks in the country.

Two years later, the COVID-19 pandemic hit the country. SkyJumper struggled with minimal revenue and high fixed costs such as rent, CAM charges, and utilities. 

“We relied on our personal capital and managed to keep the business afloat. Suneel and I knew that the business had long-term viability and we were not bogged down at all,” Jitender tells Startup Pedia.

Eventually, after the lockdown restrictions eased, SkyJumper began focusing on developing in-house design, development, and operational capabilities. The vision was to manufacture high-quality equipment at lower costs, with the objective of reducing capital expenditure and operating expenditure.

“We became an indoor amusement park brand that aligns with the Prime Minister’s vision of Make-in-India,” Suneel adds.

Even though SkyJumper began with just high-quality trampolines, it quickly expanded its centers to offer VR zones, arcade, laser tag arenas, soft play, and bowling.

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SKYJUMPER: OF JUMPS, FUN, AND OLYMPICS 

Today, SkyJumper operates more than 20 family entertainment centers, each of them equipped with a host of refreshing formats like trampolines, laser tag arenas, soft play, bowling zones, VR zones, family rides, wall climbs, birthday party rooms, and cafes. The indoor amusement park brand also hosts special zones for corporate events.

“We have been rapidly diversifying our formats because the competition in Tier I cities is through the roof. You need to keep audiences engaged while providing them something to always look forward to,” entrepreneur Suneel Dhar says.

While most trampoline parks in India have a one-format franchise that is limited to just two to three cities, SkyJumper differentiates itself with a pan-India presence that speaks of innovation, consistency, and expert in-house manufacturing capabilities. 

“Instead of making SkyJumper just another trampoline park that has a one-size-fits-all approach when it comes to entertainment, we have been adopting a multi-format strategy that has a family-first design, but caters to specific age groups,”Suneel adds.

With multiple attractions under one roof, SkyJumper has a pan-India presence today across cities like Delhi, Gurugram, Noida, Chandigarh, Lucknow, Pune, and Bengaluru.

Apart from making everyone jump and destress after long working days and weeks, SkyJumper is focused on driving awareness of trampoline as an Olympic sport.

“India has never competed in this space on the global stage. We want to ultimately make that happen,”Jitender says.

The startup founders are regularly training their staff as well as interested gymnasts in international trampoline techniques. Last year, they conducted an event where 12 national athletes were invited to compete on the trampoline stage.

Jitender and Suneel are also on track to launch a SkyJumper Academy where children with potential are identified and given tangible opportunities.

“Our long-term aim is to partner with sports bodies and build India’s first trampoline athlete pipeline. Through that, we should be able to identify the right talent at the grassroots level and sponsor their complete training and pathway to the Olympics,”startup founder Suneel Dhar shares.

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GROWTH AND FUTURE

Since its inception, SkyJumper has been scaling its revenues and growing its offerings. What began with a team of just 10 people has now become a full-grown company with 1000+ employees and on-ground staff.

In FY18, SkyJumper clocked a net revenue of Rs 3.61 crore with a profit before tax of Rs 82 lakh.

In FY22, the net revenue zoomed to Rs 10.57 crore with a profit before tax of Rs 4.06 crore. In FY23, the net revenue stood at Rs 39.87 crore.

In FY24, Suneel Dhar’s and Jitender Chhabra’s SkyJumper achieved a net revenue of Rs 75.1 crore with a profit before tax of Rs 32.75 crore.

On weekdays, each center of the indoor amusement park brand caters to a footfall of at least 200 to 250 people. On weekends, this number balloons to more than 500.

In FY24, SkyJumper catered to approximately 25.32 lakh customers.

In the next two years, the bootstrapped brand plans to open 30+ centers across Tier I, II, and III cities in India. It is eventually transitioning into SkyJumper 2.0 with specialized formats such as SkyJumper Luxe and SkyJumper Sports Bar, designed to unlock new audiences.

“We aim to be IPO-ready by FY27 and become India’s first publicly traded indoor amusement brand. Ultimately, the bigger vision is to build a Disney-level amusement experience brand in India that combines physical spaces, original content and characters, and integrates sports and wellness. SkyJumper is not just about jumping anymore. It is about how India plays, bonds, and moves together,”entrepreneur Jitender Chhabra concludes.

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