A recent question at https://www.syndicateroom.com/Bird question and answer section queried the size of the market. Here's my response, any information anyone has to substantiate this would be welcomed.

Thank you for the question, there are different types of shuttles used a varying rates dependent on the standard of play. If the note below does not fully answer your questions I can send a full business plan and further information. There are no published stats for this market.

How long a feather shuttle lasts depends on the standard of play. Most usage is for club play. A gentle match between skilled players may use 2 feather shuttles per set. Big hitting performance players will use 3 to 5. Most feathers are used in China and I expect they make them last a lot longer, let's say 1 per set.

The case with plastic shuttles is less varied. One good quality nylon shuttle will last 3-5 sets.

The total number of regular players in the world is estimated at well over 100 million. Let's say they play a minimum of 20 times a year. At clubs or coaching sessions one would expect to get at least 2 sets or equivalent playing time. Therefore the estimated total number of sets played is 4,000,000,000. Most play is in doubles format, therefore divide by 4 to get a representative figure for shuttle usage, = 1,000,000,000 sets.

It is thought that there are 3 times more feather users than nylon. So the usage is split thus:

750,000,000 sets at 1 feather shuttle per set = 750,000,000 per year

250,000,000 sets at 5 sets per nylon shuttle = 50,000,000 per year

Based on these figures, which I have tried to keep conservative, to replace the whole market with nylon shuttles would need 200,000,000 (200 million)

This is conjecture and considerably larger, but probably more accurate than, the information in the Syndicate Room summary which is based on available references. This is purely an illustration based on my research.

The business plan and financial figures are conservative in that we assume we take 10% of the nylon market and no significant part of the feather market. Should feather shuttles continue to increase in price relative to nylon shuttles or be affected by bird flu or other issue the growth illustrated could be multiplied several times.

We are raising £130k towards the building of a new high volume production line and the share offer is now live on a crowdfunding site at: https://www.syndicateroom.com/Bird . We have raised £62k from our existing investors and received a further £12k from 3 new investors on the Syndicate Room site in the first three days since launch. This work is well under way and the new line is due to be commissioned before the start of the new badminton season in September.

This offer is compliant with EIS (Enterprise Investment scheme) and we have just received authorisation from HMRC to issue EIS1 forms related to any investments made under this round of funding.