Grid Finder has been acquired by US-based motorsports group, RAFA Racing Club.
RAFA Racing Club has acquired sim racing community platform, Grid Finder. Grid Finder will join the RAFA family of brands with a shared vision to build the world’s largest online racing platform, providing value to sim racers, gamers and motorsport enthusiasts around the world.
Grid Finder was started by Tom Stapley-Bunten as a hobby project in late 2020 with the aim of helping online racing gamers find communities to race with across Playstation, XBOX and PC on games such as F1, Gran Turismo & Forza. Later, Chris Honniball (CIO) and Nikhil Patel (CTO) joined the team to develop the technology platform.
The platform has grown to host over 3,000 racing communities and has had over 500,000 drivers use the platform to find online racing. The team recently hosted activations with Formula E and Porsche Motorsport North America and is currently working with several gaming studios to build direct integrations between their games and Grid Finder.
RAFA Racing Club is building a network of venues, content and experiences for motorsports and sports car fans around the world. Starting in Houston and Austin, and expanding to Europe in 2024, the clubs will provide a space for motorsports fans and drivers to share their passion for racing. The clubs will play host to suite of facilities including gyms, sim racing training centres and more.
The Grid Finder team plans to scale the platform throughout 2024, providing more tools for sim racers, league managers, livery designers, modders, engineers, broadcasters, commentators and stewards. In addition, the team will become pivotal in building tech capability across the whole of the RAFA family of brands.
“It is an exciting time for our young but rapidly expanding company as we look to do our part in creating a world and community in motorsports where everybody belongs and everybody wins. Bringing Grid Finder onto our platform not only takes our ability to make massive strides towards that mission but it also cements our position in the tech space where we see a massive growth potential for our RAFA family of brands.” Rafael Martinez (Principal, Maximo Capital & RAFA Family of Brands)
Tom Stapley-Bunten (CEO) – “Becoming part of the RAFA family of brands opens up huge opportunities for the team and the platform. Grid Finder now has the resources and supported vision to provide immense value to the online racing space. I’m incredibly proud of our entirely self-taught team for building something with so much potential in such a nascent market. With RAFA Racing’s passion, vision and resources, we’ll be able to scale our product to serve a global community of racing fans.”
Nikhil Patel (CTO) – “As a gamer, I’ve been able to work on something that I love. In addition to building a platform, I’ve been able to build a team of developers that all love the community we’re building for. I’m looking forward to the opportunities to scale the team and the platform as part of the RAFA family.”
