Athlete-focused crowdfunders MAKEACHAMP prepare for the big leagues


It’s going to be a big year for Montreal-based MAKEACHAMP, according to the company’s unique cofounders David Barkay and Michael Shpigelman.

Let’s take a step back to nine months ago in cold, windy February 2015. That was when MTLinTech ran a story about how a completely bootstrapped company working out of downtown’s Notman House for about two years had hit comfortable profitability in athlete-centred crowdfunding. Their platform helps athletes reach their dreams in various sports, like judo, weightlifting, cycling, ultramarathon, mixed martial arts and dozens more.

In fact, at that time they had already helped raise over $1 million for athletes without taking a dime of venture capital. That’s set to change as the company is strongly leaning towards raising a future series A round.

To date over 10,000 athletes or teams have used the platform to raise money.

To understand the creation of MAKEACHAMP, one truly has to sit down with the cofounders Barkay and Shpiegelman and watch them play off each other (a third cofounder, David Ancor, is a professional judo martial artist currently training for the Rio 2016 Olympics in Brazil.)

The two cofounders usually speak Hebrew to each other, while Russian, English, French or Portuguese can be heard in the company’s small and rustic Old Port office on any given day. Both Barkay, 59, and Shpigelman, 25, immigrated to Canada more than 10 years ago. Barkay came from Israel on the old Canada investor visa, and Shpigelman from Russia with his family when he was just 12.

Barkay’s first company once he settled in Montreal in 1997 sought to build an android robot, but he admitted he was ten years too early. His next company, called Simbionix, was eventually sold to 3D systems (NASDAQ: DDD) for $120 million in August 2014. The next stop from 2008 to late 2009 was Immersion Medical, where he served as VP and general manager. After that, from 2010 to late 2011, Barkay was VP of global sales for CAE Healthcare, where he helped grow revenue from $60,000 to over $6 million.

During most of this time Barkay’s first decade in Canada, he trained in judo at Dojo Shidokan with a few guys that would end up cofounding MAKEACHAMP (at the time, Canada’s national team was also training there). It was a young Shpigelman, in his early-twenties at the time, who said he would pester Barkay everyday at the judo gym about new business ideas that they could pursue. Finally in 2013 when Shpigelmen pitched Barkay on what would become MAKEACHAMP, the elder cofunder was all in.

The idea wasn’t from nothing, either: All three cofounders represented or are representing Canada on the international stage in judo. Before MAKEACHAMP, they had to turn to traditional crowdfunding to raise the huge funds needed to sustain participation in this sport. Stuck with plane ticket bills, enormous tournament fees and more, they all realized a need for an athlete-catered platform.

“The fact we are Judokas is very significant,” said Barkay. “We’re used to training hard, fighting with determination and reaching our targets. We’re mainly used to feeling the pain and we’re champions of endurance. So at that point I was convinced on the idea and we all started meeting.”

Today the company is still small, at under 15 employees, but Barkay and Shpigelman told MTLinTech over coffee in the Old Port that things are about to go full-steam ahead. It’s all part of a series of grand plans that the visionary Barkay has. The conversation frequently paused for laughs, as Barkay is all-too-aware that he isn’t the “normal” CEO with respect to the way he thinks and leads.

Barkay wants MAKEACHAMP to propel an entire generation of athletes to their dreams. He wants it to be so successful that one day it will hopefully be the driving force behind a city-wide corporate venture capital firm solely for athletic business ventures. He wants to collaborate with existing players in the Montreal scene who can also make it happen.

“Montreal is the right place,” he said. “Let’s not forget we have one of the highest number of sports facilities in this island in the world. We’re an Olympian city and we have a leading role here to show the world whats is sports democratization.”

Partnering up with the City of Montreal for such a venture could be difficult though. Mayor Denis Coderre’s has been quick and forceful in getting things done for the city that he deems most necessary, but it looks like any focus on a citizen-centric fund for sports startups isn’t his main priority. As the Montreal Gazette reported last week, “six of council’s eight current permanent consultative committees haven’t held the minimum four public meetings so far in 2015, as required by a long-standing city bylaw.” Those include the committee on culture, heritage and sports. It didn’t hold a single meeting in 2014, either.

It seems in Barkay’s case, there may be only one solution for him: “Maybe I will have to run for Mayor one day then,” the smiling cofounder said.

First thing’s first though: the building of MAKEACHAMP into a world-class startup from Montreal that helps Canadian athletes raise money for their dreams.

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