Cloudbound

Every parent of a toddler has felt it — the desperate search for a safe, stimulating, genuinely engaging space where a child under six can run, climb, jump, and explore without navigating obstacle courses built for ten-year-olds. That gap between infant gyms and full-scale trampoline parks has been largely ignored by the active entertainment industry for two decades, and it represents one of the most underserved segments in experiential retail. Cloudbound, launched in June 2025 by Sky Zone — the company that effectively invented the commercial trampoline park category when it was founded in 2004 — is a purpose-built answer to that problem. Rather than retrofitting an existing adult-oriented concept, Sky Zone created Cloudbound as a ground-up children's indoor play franchise designed exclusively for children aged 0 to 6 years, making it one of the most precisely targeted concepts to emerge from the active entertainment space in recent memory. The parent company, Sky Zone, operates and franchises over 265 parks globally and is recognized as a pioneer in active entertainment, giving Cloudbound an institutional foundation that most emerging franchise concepts lack entirely. Cloudbound Franchise Group, LLC is headquartered at 86 N. University Avenue, Suite 350, Provo, Utah 84601, and is led by CEO David Hoffmann at the Sky Zone parent level, with Josh Rathweg installed as Brand President of Cloudbound and Michael Revak serving as Chief Operating Officer. The brand's first locations are planned as company-owned units in New York and Washington, D.C., with a lease already signed for a 19,197-square-foot facility at 80 Nardozzi Place in New Rochelle, New York, announced on August 13, 2025. For franchise investors evaluating the children's entertainment space, Cloudbound enters the market carrying one of the most credible sponsor profiles an emerging concept can have — a 21-year-old parent brand, an experienced executive team, and a clearly defined consumer it was built to serve from day one.

The children's indoor play and active entertainment industry operates within a broader franchise and experiential retail economy that has demonstrated consistent structural growth. The global franchise market surpassed $890 billion in 2024, and projections call for a compound annual growth rate of approximately 10% through 2030, with North America accounting for nearly 38.9% of incremental growth during that forecast period. The business format franchise segment alone — the category into which Cloudbound falls — was valued at $281.4 billion in 2024, reflecting the scale and maturity of the franchisor-franchisee operating model as a vehicle for brand expansion. Within that broader universe, the children's enrichment and indoor entertainment category benefits from a set of secular consumer trends that are difficult to argue against: parents of young children are increasingly prioritizing structured, developmental play environments over passive screen-based entertainment, and disposable income allocation toward children's experiences has grown consistently across middle and upper-middle income households. The experiential economy thesis — that consumers, particularly millennial parents now forming families, prefer spending on experiences over goods — directly reinforces demand for a concept like Cloudbound. Indoor play facilities carry the additional advantage of being weather-independent, which smooths revenue seasonality compared to outdoor recreational businesses. The competitive landscape for the 0-to-6 age segment specifically is notably less consolidated than the broader active entertainment space, where large trampoline park brands have already staked out significant market share. That fragmentation creates a genuine first-mover opportunity for a well-capitalized entrant with institutional backing, which is precisely the position Cloudbound occupies as it moves from corporate pilot locations into franchised expansion.

The Cloudbound franchise investment is structured to accommodate different park sizes, creating meaningful flexibility in how a franchisee approaches the opportunity. The total investment necessary to begin operation of a single Cloudbound Park ranges from $1,815,000 to $3,631,460, with this spread driven primarily by park size, which may vary from 10,000 to 20,000 square feet depending on the chosen real estate. Within that total, an amount of $634,000 to $1,193,460 must be paid to the franchisor or its affiliates, covering brand licensing, buildout-related fees, and pre-opening costs. For investors seeking multi-unit rights, the franchise structure offers a development path: the total investment required to begin operation of the first Cloudbound Park while simultaneously securing the rights to develop two additional parks ranges from $1,917,100 to $3,733,560, of which $734,000 to $1,293,460 is payable to the franchisor or its affiliates. The incremental cost to acquire rights to two additional parks — approximately $102,100 more than a single-unit agreement on the low end — represents a compelling entry point for multi-unit operators who anticipate scaling, since territory rights in fast-growing urban markets tend to increase in cost as a brand gains validation. Cloudbound's total investment range places it in the mid-to-premium tier of franchise investments, consistent with other experience-based concepts requiring meaningful physical infrastructure, custom build-outs, and specialized equipment. Industry benchmarks suggest initial franchise fees across the broader franchise universe typically fall between $20,000 and $50,000, with ongoing royalty rates generally ranging from 4% to 8% of gross sales and advertising fund contributions commonly running between 1% and 5% of net sales — these benchmarks provide a reasonable working framework for modeling Cloudbound's recurring cost structure while specific line-item figures are finalized in public disclosures. The investment is backed by the institutional credibility of Sky Zone, which has deployed significant capital across its 265-plus park network and understands both the unit economics and the real estate demands of large-format indoor active entertainment. Prospective investors should evaluate the capital requirements against their own balance sheet, noting that general franchise qualification standards typically require a minimum of $40,000 to $50,000 in liquid capital and a minimum net worth of $300,000, with larger experiential concepts often requiring substantially more.

Daily operations at a Cloudbound park will revolve around the management of a large-format physical facility — facilities ranging from 10,000 to 20,000 square feet — dedicated entirely to the developmental play needs of children aged 0 to 6. This operating profile implies a staffing model that includes both guest-facing play facilitators and facility management personnel, since safety protocols, sanitization standards, and age-appropriate supervision are all inherently more intensive in a concept built for very young children than in a standard trampoline park environment. The owner-operator model is the standard expectation in experience-based franchise concepts of this scale, and prospective franchisees should approach Cloudbound as an active management business rather than a passive investment. Sky Zone's institutional playbook across 265-plus parks provides Cloudbound franchisees access to operational frameworks, proprietary systems, and brand standards that have been refined over more than two decades of managing indoor active entertainment facilities — a meaningful advantage over building operational infrastructure from scratch. The multi-unit development structure mentioned in the franchise disclosure suggests that territory rights are an important dimension of the Cloudbound expansion strategy, with development agreements granting operators rights to establish multiple units within defined geographic areas. Training programs in franchise concepts of this complexity typically include a combination of classroom instruction, hands-on facility training, and post-opening field support, with franchisors in the active entertainment category commonly providing field consultant visits, technology platform access, and centralized marketing program support as components of the ongoing royalty and fee structure. The New Rochelle, New York facility — signed in August 2025 at 19,197 square feet — will function both as a guest-facing park and as an early operational proof of concept, giving the corporate team the opportunity to document and refine standard operating procedures before deploying them at scale across a franchised network.

Item 19 financial performance data is not disclosed in the current Franchise Disclosure Document for Cloudbound, which is a common characteristic of franchise concepts in their earliest stages of development, before sufficient operating history exists across multiple units to generate statistically meaningful earnings representations. This is not unusual for a brand that launched in June 2025 — the FTC's franchise disclosure rules require franchisors to base Item 19 representations on actual operating data, and Cloudbound's corporate pilot units in New York and Washington, D.C. will need to operate long enough to produce the auditable performance data that supports a defensible financial performance representation. What investors can evaluate in the absence of Item 19 data is the parent company context, the unit economics logic inherent in the operating model, and the broader industry benchmarks for comparable experiential entertainment concepts. Sky Zone's 265-plus park network generates meaningful aggregate revenue at the system level, and as the franchisor of record, Sky Zone's institutional understanding of large-format indoor entertainment unit economics directly informed the construction of Cloudbound's investment range and fee structure. Facilities of 10,000 to 20,000 square feet in high-density urban markets — the profile of the New Rochelle location and the Washington, D.C. target — are capable of generating substantial per-visit revenue when admission pricing, party booking, membership programs, and ancillary retail are properly optimized. The indoor active entertainment category has demonstrated strong revenue-per-square-foot performance historically, particularly for concepts with high visit frequency among a loyal local demographic. Prospective franchisees are strongly advised to request any available financial performance representations during the franchise sales process, to engage directly with the corporate pilot location operators once those units open, and to contact franchisees listed in Item 20 or Exhibit E of the FDD to gather ground-level perspective on early-stage operational economics as the network builds its performance track record.

Cloudbound's growth trajectory is positioned at an important inflection point: the transition from a corporate concept to a franchised network, which is the moment when execution quality determines whether an emerging franchise brand achieves scale or stalls. Sky Zone's decision to open company-owned pilot locations in New York and Washington, D.C. before activating franchised expansion reflects a deliberate market-validation strategy, and the signing of the 19,197-square-foot New Rochelle lease in August 2025 signals that the corporate buildout is progressing on an accelerated timeline. Leadership appointments underscore the strategic seriousness of the Cloudbound launch: Josh Rathweg as Brand President brings dedicated executive focus to the concept rather than treating it as a secondary initiative within the larger Sky Zone organization, and Sherin Sakr's elevation to President of International for Sky Zone creates a parallel pathway for future global expansion of the Cloudbound concept into markets outside the United States. The competitive moat for Cloudbound is built on several reinforcing advantages: Sky Zone's 21-year operating history in indoor active entertainment provides supply chain relationships, vendor agreements, and facility design expertise that a startup entrant simply cannot replicate; the brand's explicit 0-to-6 age focus creates a differentiated market position within the broader active entertainment landscape, where most large-format concepts target older children and families; and the mixed corporate-and-franchise growth model means that the franchisor has direct skin in the operational game, which tends to produce more rigorous brand standards than a purely asset-light franchise model. The global franchise market's projected 10% CAGR through 2030, combined with the underserved nature of the early childhood indoor play segment, creates a window of expansion opportunity that favors early franchisee entrants who secure strong territorial positions before the network reaches maturity.

The ideal Cloudbound franchisee is likely an experienced multi-unit operator or a hospitality, education, or active entertainment professional who understands both the operational demands of managing a large-format physical facility and the service culture required to consistently deliver high-quality experiences to families with very young children. Because the concept requires facilities of 10,000 to 20,000 square feet, franchisees need to be comfortable navigating commercial real estate transactions in competitive urban and suburban markets, where the brand's target demographic — parents of children aged 0 to 6 — is concentrated in high-density, high-income residential areas. The multi-unit development path built into the franchise structure suggests that the brand is actively seeking operators with the capital base and organizational bandwidth to develop multiple parks, rather than single-unit lifestyle operators. Available territories are expected to concentrate initially in major metropolitan markets, consistent with the corporate pilot strategy in New York and Washington, D.C., with suburban expansion likely to follow as the brand achieves consumer recognition. The franchise agreement structure, including term lengths and renewal conditions, should be reviewed carefully in the full FDD, with particular attention to development schedule obligations in multi-unit agreements, which typically require franchisees to open additional units on a defined timeline or risk losing exclusivity in their development territory. Transfer and resale provisions are also important due diligence items for any franchise investment of this capital magnitude, and prospective investors should consult with a franchise attorney before executing any agreement.

Cloudbound represents a genuinely distinctive franchise opportunity in the 2025 active entertainment landscape — a purpose-built concept targeting an underserved demographic, backed by an operator with 21 years of category experience and a 265-plus park global network, entering the market at a moment when the global franchise sector is growing at 10% annually and the experiential economy for young families is demonstrating consistent secular demand. The investment range of $1,815,000 to $3,631,460 for a single unit places this firmly in the category of serious capital commitments that warrant rigorous, independent due diligence — not marketing conversations with a franchise development team, but deep analysis of the FDD, direct conversations with the operators of corporate pilot locations, and benchmarking against comparable active entertainment and children's enrichment franchise investments. The absence of Item 19 financial performance data is expected for a brand this new and should not be interpreted as a red flag, but it does mean that investors must be especially disciplined in stress-testing their own revenue assumptions and ensuring their capital reserves are sufficient to sustain operations through the ramp period before a new facility reaches stabilized performance. PeerSense provides exclusive due diligence data including SBA lending history, FPI score, location maps with Google ratings, FDD financial data, and side-by-side comparison tools that allow investors to benchmark Cloudbound directly against other active entertainment and children's enrichment franchise opportunities across every relevant investment metric. The combination of Sky Zone's institutional backing, a clearly defined and underserved consumer target, and the structural growth tailwinds in both the franchise market and the experiential economy for families makes Cloudbound a concept that belongs on the due diligence list of any serious franchise investor evaluating the active entertainment space. Explore the complete Cloudbound franchise profile on PeerSense to access the full suite of independent franchise intelligence data.