Transforming darts from pub game to global phenomenon with Nodor

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Audio Transcript

Tim Smallbone

Hello and welcome to Inflexion Point, the podcast that explores those crucial moments in a company's journey that change the trajectory of success. Through conversations with business founders and entrepreneurs, we'll look at what those moments are and how to recognise and harness them. I'm Tim Smallbone and in my 20 years as a partner at Inflexion, I've been lucky enough to witness many of those moments that sit behind every success story. In today's episode, we're stepping up to the oche and throwing ourselves into the world of darts.

Yes, double 12! That is the most amazing level of darts you will ever see in your life. I can't stake! I can't stake!

Well, that's the sound of the PDC World Darts Championships at London's Alexandra Palace. If you have watched it on the telly, you'll be familiar with the outrageous fancy dress and raucous party atmosphere. But look beyond that and you'll find the company we're talking about today, sitting right at the centre of this hugely popular sport. Nodor Group designs and manufactures premium darts equipment, including the iconic Winmore dartboard, as well as countless accessories for top pros like “Cool Hand” Luke Humphreys and “Mighty” Michael Van Gerwen.

Vince Bluck

I see our family as stewards of this great business, but to take it to the next level, you need a new system, a new structure.

Tom Pemberton

What the team had done over the years was put the brands in a fantastic position where they were hugely well-regarded, but also set the business up to scale.

Tim Smallbone

I'm joined by Vince Bluck, founder and non-executive director of Nodor, the family business built on innovation, craftsmanship, and a genuine love of the sport. Also in the studio is Tom Pemberton, who led Inflexion's Buyout investment in the company in 2025. Vince, Tom, welcome to you both and thanks for joining us.

Vince Bluck

Thank you.

Tim Smallbone

Vince, first of all, do you just want to tell us a little bit about what the company does? What is it today?

Vince Bluck

Morning, Tim, and thank you for having me here this morning. With two of the main brands in the darts industry, Winmore and Red Dragon, and the phenomenal growth that the darts industry has seen over the last five or 10 years or so, the business has grown to the level where we're one of the biggest groups, not just within the darts industry, but within the sporting goods manufacturing sector. We currently employ some 2,000 people worldwide. We're the official equipment supplier to the iconic Professional Darts Corporation, so our boards are seen at all of the Sky Sports televised events, seen by millions of fans worldwide. And we currently sponsor a plethora of the top professionals, including, as you mentioned, Mighty Michael Van Gerwen, Cool Hand Luke Humphreys, the Iceman Gerwyn Price and The Ferret Johnny Clayton.

My family's involvement started in the mid-1970s. My father was a process engineer at Ford's Axle and transmission plant in Swansea. He was invited to stand in for somebody at a darts event one night, never played the game at all, and had a great evening. So he thought, actually, let's look at what's involved and maybe I'll sort of take this game up as a sort of a pastime. He noticed a set of tungsten darts was retailing back in the mid-1970s for about £30 a set, which was effectively the typical take-home salary per week for a working-class blue-collar worker, which was the key darts target market. So as an engineer, he looked at how he could take tungsten heavy metal and produce it in a way that was available to the widespread darting public, just in a little furnace that he'd made at home.

Tim Smallbone

At home.

Vince Bluck

He created a furnace at home. He built this in his garage. The thermostat on this furnace used to kick in and at night you'd see the streetlights sort of dim a couple of notches. Started then machining this tungsten alloy into darts at a cost that was way, way lower than anybody else in the industry was able to produce at. So he said, well, I really think this could go somewhere, but do I really take the plunge and leave my job at Ford's? So, he put together this single page flyer. My mother used to go to the local library and book out the 40 regional yellow pages that covered all of the UK, and she'd handwrite tens of thousands of envelopes.

Tim Smallbone

You’re joking? From the Yellow Pages?

Vince Bluck

Handwrite tens of thousands of envelopes from the Yellow Pages, sending this single page flyer to the darts team at every pub and club throughout the UK. And it went berserk. Just overnight it took off. All of the orders used to come in via a PO box. These were sort of four or five postal sacks full of cash, you know, £5 notes, £10 notes, postal orders. And that was the start of Red Dragon.

Tim Smallbone

Yeah, it's a combination of entrepreneurialism and just frankly hard work, isn't it? And that created the darts.

Vince Bluck

It was.

Tim Smallbone

Red Dragon

Vince Bluck

It was hard work and a lot of luck. You know, finding. Getting the right product at the right time, at the right price.

Tim Smallbone

We're talking 70s, 80s.

Vince Bluck

This was mid-70s. Just as the industry was starting to take off, lots of TV coverage, lots of characters, as I say, your Eric Bristows.

Tim Smallbone

Yeah, and Bullseye as well, smashing. “Super, smashing, great.”

Vince Bluck

Bullseye came along in the early 1980s. What a fantastic, fantastic programme that was. I think viewing figures peaked actually in about 1987 or 1988, 17 million people used to tune in.

Tim Smallbone

It was a phenomenon, yeah. And that presumably was a wonderful window for darts to make everybody aware of darts as a sport.

Vince Bluck

Just the level of interest was fantastic.

Tim Smallbone

The company today, so Red Dragon, your dad's company, was just part of, there were other companies founded which merged together to form the Nodor business.

Vince Bluck

So my father started Red Dragon in 1975. He was then approached by Nodor in 1983, who said, we've seen your little darts business grow over the last sort of four or five years. Maybe we should look at a merger. So my father's then sort of accountant looked at the business and said, John, he said, “don't touch, don't touch this business with a barge pole.” He said, “they'll bring your little business down. He said, they're on a three-day week, orders are down.”

Tim Smallbone

They were proper struggling.

Vince Bluck

They were really struggling.

Tim Smallbone

Yeah.

Vince Bluck

And production techniques were dated. So he said, well, they're struggling, but I recognise so much opportunity here. I think I can turn the production around. I can bring in a heap of new technical innovation. So the accountant said, “well, make them an offer.” And that's exactly what we did and they took the decision to divest of the dartboard business. And so my father acquired it in 1983.

Tim Smallbone

What about the brand? The Winmore brand came from a slightly different route.

Vince Bluck

So the founder of Winmore, Harry Kicks, started the Winmore company in 1946 with his demob money. He was an ex-sergeant major in the Second World War. The Winmore name comes from the consolidation of the founder's wife’s first two names, Winifred Maude. So a lot of people pronounce it Winmow, it's actually not, it's Winmore and it's from the consolidation of Winifred Maude.

Tim Smallbone

Then how did Harry's business, Winmore, come to be all under the same ownership?

Vince Bluck

We talked about coming together and trying to work together and consolidate the two businesses for so many years, but for one reason or another – egos, aspirations –nothing, managed to work until 2001. And sadly, the 9-11 disaster in September 2001, when Winmau was actually owned by its US distributor, a company called Accudart and Qlight Tungsten, the Americans were going back into their shell a little bit after, quite understandably, after 9-11. And they said, it's time for us to divest this business. And I could just immediately see the benefits and the synergy of bringing these two companies together. We could leverage their higher average selling price with our more efficient and modern manufacturing techniques. It was a huge opportunity.

Tim Smallbone

A huge turning point, an inflection point in the story.

Vince Bluck

Absolutely. And so we acquired the business in December 2001.

Tim Smallbone

The genesis goes back to your father. Your mum was involved in the business. And you've worked in the business all your life.

Vince Bluck

I've came straight, I was going to work in the, I studied economics at university, was going to go into accountancy, but joined the business in 1993. And that was probably at one of the low points in the game, actually. The traditional pub business was tough, the TV coverage was dropping, the image of the game wasn't great either.

Tim Smallbone

So the game went through a complete revolution. Once you got in, you say it was in decline, it was struggling, the industry was struggling. And yet it's been utterly transformed since then into a game played by absolutely millions and so popular. What was behind that transformation?

Vince Bluck

Two main factors. One is accessibility. Darts has always been a low-cost game to get into. But one of the key growth factors that really transformed the game was the establishment of the Professional Darts Corporation, the professionalism and expertise, and in their own words, as Barry and Eddie Hearn would say from Matchroom, they sprinkled some serious magic, some Matchroom magic dust into the darts business. Barry Hearn has often said, “when I first went to a darts tournament, I could smell the money.”

Tim Smallbone

Really.

Vince Bluck

I could smell the money.

Tim Smallbone

The instinct was there.

Vince Bluck

And what Matchroom and the Professional Darts Corporation have done in professionalising the game, taking it away from that sort of pub-type atmosphere, moving it into big arenas, working with the players, creating the real characters of the game, and generating prize funds that darts players could literally only dream of. And because of the accessibility of the game, people say, well, how difficult can it be? I'll have a go at that.

Tim Smallbone

I'll give it a go. I can make it a go. I mean, the mention of the word “smell” the money, it must promptly turn to the venture capitalist in the room. Tom, what led you to be interested in the world of darts?

Tom Pemberton

It's interesting. I think Vince has touched on a lot of the areas. I mean, as investors, what we're always looking for is high growth markets that we think we can access. And there's usually a number of dynamics that sit behind that. Obviously, you know, strong consumer interest, lots of money coming into the sport. And Vince talked about the sponsorship and the TV money. But for us, when we get really excited about categories, is where there is a growing international opportunity and where we as investors think that we can help businesses scale internationally. And we'd seen darts growing massively over the last probably five years, but maybe a bit longer than that. You know, the professionalism coming through, the PDC, they're just a really well-run organisation. They're very thoughtful about growth and when I say thoughtful, they're considerate about how aggressively they grow the sport as well, which you want to see because there are oversaturation challenges that you have with some sports and some content, particularly in this day and age. So there was an element of that within the category as well.

But when we spoke to people, and it's one of those sports that once you get into it, you're hooked. And the level of loyalty and community that you see within the sport of darts is really strong and really differentiated. So we saw all of those dynamics at play, for us as investors, that's all great. Then you've got to find the opportunity and the businesses to back. And that was the fortunate situation that we got when we met Vince and Fiona Bluck, who were running Nodor at the time a couple of years ago.

Tim Smallbone

You can sense sitting here with Vince, you can sense the passion and that combination of passion as well as the entrepreneurialism, it led to a fantastic business opportunity. Taking all the passion and the emotion out of it, you saw a business opportunity.

Tom Pemberton

Yeah, and Vince talked about it before. This business and the brands that are part of the Nodor Group, they were all built on a fundamental focus on precision engineering and differentiation from a product perspective, which as a consumer investor is the first thing you look for in an opportunity. And so it had that great platform and the brands have that great platform. They are the best-known brands in the sport of darts, which is a fantastic category to be in. And I think with the Nodor business, what Vince and Fiona and the team had done over the years was put the brands in a fantastic position where they were hugely well regarded across the sport, but also set the business up to scale really strongly and benefit from all the tailwinds that we're seeing in darts. There's, you know, strong international opportunity available, multi-channel approach, so great relationships with a large number of the B2B providers and really well regarded in that channel, but also opportunity across digital, across Amazon. And then from an international perspective, extremely strong in the UK, growing really well in Europe, but largely untapped in the US and also Asia, which we're seeing huge growth and huge viewership and huge demand for in the world of darts. So a fantastic business and a really, really great platform then for us as investors to come along and help support in the next wave.

Tim Smallbone

Vince, what led you to do a deal with Inflexion? You and Fiona were owning the business, obviously extremely successful. What was the thinking behind doing a deal?

Vince Bluck

Our family-run business structure was fantastic and really, really helped us get to where we got to. But that passion and sheer graft and hard work probably plateaued at probably about the £50 to £70 million turnover level. Up to that point, my wife Fiona, my brother Alex and myself, we would touch every single point of the business. And that was great up to, as I say, that sort of £50, £70 million turnover level. But I was becoming increasingly concerned that structure wasn't conducive to the huge opportunities that were still out there and we would be doing this great business a disservice if we didn't look at how we maximised those opportunities. And so we actually touched base with an old pal of mine who was a senior partner at a local finance company in Wales. And Frank said, why don't you consider private equity? Have a coffee with some of the guys I know. So we met with Tom and Richard and Jack from Inflexion. And we were seriously impressed and excited about how a partnership with the Inflexion team could really help us fast-track that growth and the opportunities that were available to us.

Tim Smallbone

More than just the money.

Vince Bluck

It wasn't really about the money. I see our family more as stewards of this great business, but to take it to the next level, you need a new system, a new structure, and that's exactly what the Inflexion team can bring to the table.

Tim Smallbone

You've already highlighted a number of sort of major turning points in the history of the company, but the actual deal itself was a major turning point as well, inviting in outside help.

Vince Bluck

Absolutely. And one of the exciting things that I think led us to partnering with Inflexion was their value acceleration team. You don't know what you don't know. And by working with a hugely successful group with a portfolio of 55 or so really strong growing businesses, you can draw on all of that sort of experience and expertise that we simply didn't have access to before. So by leveraging all of that expertise, the business is in a hugely different position now. And we're now set up, as we say, we're on the road to £250 million.

Tim Smallbone

And Tom, presumably you could see that from the outside. You could see the opportunity that was there for us to have our own impact on the business.

Tom Pemberton

Absolutely. And when we met Vince and Fiona, the Nodor business was in phenomenal shape. It was growing and continues to grow extremely well, but had been set up, the platform was there, but to Vince's point and the way we always think about the investment that we make, we're trying to support and provide as much input, but also help the business be ambitious around the growth story. And so that first and foremost, that comes down to getting the right people in the organisation and Nodor has a fantastic team and a brilliant culture and the last thing you want to do is affect that. So we've been very thoughtful about who we bring into the business and we've now got a brilliant C-suite. We've hired a large number of senior executives, including a new CEO and CFO, and they're really making great strides with the business. But the opportunity is huge. It's a massive growing market, it's international, we've got the best brands, the best product out there, the best relationships with all the key people in the industry. And so supporting the business, getting the right people in and then helping with the growth story, particularly from an international perspective, is what we do and what we love, and the opportunity here continues and we're hugely excited about it.

Tim Smallbone

And I imagine one of the tricks is to bring in that fresh blood, but retain that passion, that passion for the sport, that culture within the business.

Vince Bluck

That's a hugely exciting statement, Tim. And to be fair to Tom, they've always been hugely respectful of that sort of tradition and culture within the business. And two of the key appointments that Inflexion have helped us make, our new chairman, Greg Newenhaus, and our new CEO, Tom Brown, these are two of the most inspirational business leaders that I've ever had the pleasure to work with. We could not have recruited people of that sort of calibre without Inflexion's guidance.

Tim Smallbone

And just tell us about the marketing. One of the interesting aspects of this company, it's got a fantastic brand, trying to accelerate that marketing in the digital age.

Tom Pemberton

Yeah, and look, that's a big area of focus for us as consumer investors. Obviously, we've done a lot in terms of expanding businesses through the DTC channel, we know the social media landscape inside out, having invested in a social media marketing agency over the years. And I think that the great thing about darts is there is a hugely loyal community. They engage at events, they engage, obviously, you know, watching on TV and watching it live, but also a lot of that is done online. There's a lot of chat forums and social media communication, and then also a lot of online playing of darts, which we see as huge opportunity and there's a whole consumer technology community opportunity with this investment that we see. But yeah, I think the D2C and digital aspect of darts is only really just getting started. And we see that as hugely scalable. And the great thing is it's a global sport and social media channels and digital channels don't have borders, so you can really scale these businesses quite significantly if you get the strategy right and that's a big focus for us.

Tim Smallbone

And you wouldn't have thought it, but there is also a technology opportunity here because the hard bit about playing darts is learning how to subtract from 501, but there's new technology.

Vince Bluck

One of the last barriers to entry is doing the maths. And it's, you know, it can be a turn off. And so we've been working on auto scoring systems for years to try and overcome that sort of last barrier to entry of the game. And just after the Inflexion deal, we actually acquired a German company called Autodarts who have literally just recorded their two billionth dart being thrown and automatically scored. Their technology is phenomenal. And that is so exciting, where this whole industry is going to go. If we were to set up this automatic scoring system in our office and bring Michael Van Gerwen into the office and say, Mike, throw 1,000 darts at this board, we could map exactly where those 1,000 darts landed and if they were literally a millimetre below dead centre of the treble 20, we could track that, analyse exactly where those thousand darts landed and say, Mike, they're landing slightly low, if you wear an extra pair of socks when you're next on stage, you'll lift your release point up by that millimetre, and we'll add maybe a couple of percentage points onto your three-dart average. It's that powerful. And think Flight Club in the comfort of your own home. That is where this technology will get to. And the community aspect of being able to play competitors online, track your stats and your scores and improve, give you tips to improve your game, that's the future of the game.

Tom Pemberton

The other thing that we think is... is amazing and will continue to grow the sport is the number of younger people coming into the sport. So, there's, as we talked about before, it's an extremely accessible sport. And so there's kids coming in, you know, 10, 11, seeing the success of Luke Littler, the amount of sponsorship money that's coming through and getting really excited about trying to come into the sport. So the number of young players that are throwing really good numbers, and Vince will be able to talk to this better than me, means that we have a lot of confidence that the future of the sport will continue and we'll actually have a large number of very successful, highly engaged people either playing and becoming professionals or just interested in the sport, attending events, watching TV, purchasing dartboards, etc.

Tim Smallbone

And the future is more and more international. We're looking to take it, you mentioned the United States, presumably the exit may well be for the next generation, may well be an American generation?

Tom Pemberton

Yeah, you see the stats and darts is gaining great momentum across multiple parts of the world. The Middle East is huge, Europe continues to be a massive market of growth, the UK obviously, but the US is really untapped. And you know, there's an event now in New York, which gets great attendance. But for us, I think the US opportunity, if we can get it right, will be hugely exciting. And for the, you know, next investors in darts, I think they potentially could come from the US.

Vince Bluck

So that's interesting, Tom. The event that you're referring to in New York, Madison Square Gardens, I think we're going back in June for the fourth year. The venue was sold out literally in hours, something like 5,000 seats sold out in hours. So Barry Hearn has recently announced that I think next year they're going to take over the full MSG Arena, 18,000 spectators and darts fans in New York City. That's going to be amazing.

Tim Smallbone

Wow, I hope they'll put on fancy dress and bring the proper darts atmosphere. It's an amazing story. Lots of characters in the creation of the whole darts industry, as larger than life players. If looking back, was there any sort of one moment you'd look at, just sort of reflect on, that captures the essence of it all?

Vince Bluck

I think for me, the passion that you experience every time you go into one of these major PDC events where you've got potentially 5 or 10,000 fans, millions of people watching it around the world. The atmosphere is electric and every time you just think this is so inspiring and this industry is in such good shape.

Tim Smallbone

Fantastic. What a lovely note to finish on. It's been a fascinating story. Thanks for sharing it with us. That's it for this episode. My thanks to Vince and Tom for joining me. Remember to subscribe to Inflexion Point wherever you get your podcasts so you don't miss an episode. And you can listen back to our previous instalments as well. Thanks for listening.

About the episode

Inflexion Point tells the story of Nodor, the family-run darts equipment group behind Winmau and Red Dragon, and its journey alongside the transformation of darts from pub game to global sporting phenomenon. Host Tim Smallbone is joined by founder and non-executive director Vince Bluck and Tom Pemberton, who led Inflexion’s 2025 Buyout investment in the business. They reflect on the moments that shaped it: Vince’s father building a furnace in his garage to make affordable tungsten darts, handwritten flyers triggering an explosion of orders, acquiring Nodor and later bringing Winmau into the group, and the professionalisation of darts through the PDC. Along the way, they discuss why the family brought in Inflexion to unlock the next stage of growth, the international opportunity ahead, particularly in the US, and how digital channels and automatic scoring technology could make darts even more accessible and connected for the next generation of players.