Sportstechx - Startups & The Sports Tech Ecosystem

Interviewing Machar Reid, Head of innovation at Tennis Australia and General partner at Wildcard Ventures Wildcard Ventures is a venture capital fund focused on SportsTech startups, led by Tennis Australia and supported by prominent figures in the tennis industry. In this conversation, Machar discusses the Australian Open's objective of becoming the most accessible and enjoyable sports event globally. To accomplish this objective, they continuously invest in  innovation. He elaborates on how, a decade ago, the Australian Open perceived innovative ideas from a client's perspective, but now they view these ideas from the lens of an investor. This strategy allows them to achieve higher returns rather than expending resources to adopt new innovations. Machar, also discusses the startups that AO Startups & Wildcard ventures has invested in and how they are not limited to supporting tennis but also emerging racquet sports. To learn more, visit https://www.wildcardventures.vc/ and https://aostartups.ausopen

Interviewing Max Feldstein, Vice President of Elysian Park Elysian Park, owned by the LA Dodgers, is a global investment platform focusing on the intersection of sports with health, culture, commerce, and technology. They work across stages from seed to growth to provide companies with perspective, relationships, capital, and powerful strategic resources, their investments include Trailblazer Venture Studio, Draft Kings, COPA90, PitchVision, Fitt Insider, and EP Golf Ventures in partnership with PGA of America, among others. In this conversation, Max talks about how Elysian Park broadened its key focus area from investing majorly in sports technology & entertainment to now expanding their investments across sports culture, health, commerce & technology. To know more visit www.elysianpark.ventures Hosted by Rohn Malhotra from SportsTechX - Data & Insights about SportsTech startups and the surrounding ecosystem.

Interviewing Simon Thompson, Founder of Trickshot Trickshot is a London-based sports technology company that uses 3D data from live sports to create engaging augmented & virtual reality experiences for fans In this conversation, Simon gives us an insight on how Trickshot's technology can help sports organizations attract younger audiences who are passionate about esports and seek the dynamic and immersive viewing experiences that regular sports broadcasts does not offer, resulting in a drop in viewership numbers from younger audiences.The discussion explores different approaches to utilizing their technology, which empowers fans to recreate their favorite moments and generate their own content using footage from the game. Simon also highlights their successful partnership with AFC Wimbledon, and sheds light on a few ongoing discussions with sports leagues and brands to expand and optimize the diverse applications of the technology To learn more, visit http://www.trickshot.dev Hosted by Rohn Malhotra from

Interviewing Brennon D’souza, Founder & CEO of DIBZ DIBZ is an extremely fast upgrade experience that is facilitated through text messaging, for Professional Sports, Concerts & Music Festivals. DIBZ Works closely with the NHL, NFL, NBA, MLS, CFL, NASCAR, WWE, Ticketmaster, TDC, MLSE, etc. Based out of London & Atlanta, DIBZ is a tech startup that is a full-service texting engagement platform. In this conversation, Brennon talks about how he noticed a lot of empty seats in stadiums and wondered why or how they could be filled. He thought if you can figure out how to get these seats full very quickly with a great user experience you’d be the king in the space, that was how DIBZ was born. Instead of virtually getting fans into those empty sets DIBZ works on actually getting them into those seats via text. They work across leagues and vertices and Brennon mentions that it’s really about taking their secret sauce and making sure they work fit  in all the different areas and vertices and leagues To

Interviewing Piyush Kumar, CEO of Rooter Rooter is India’s leading Game Streaming and eSports platform. The company is on a mission to provide a fair and inspiring platform to gaming content creators, helping them produce entertaining content that is unique to their personas while benefiting from monetizable opportunities for their efforts. At the same time, by building a rich and diverse content repository, driving effortless discovery, personalized recommendations, and convenient share-ability, the platform offers immersive community experiences for gaming enthusiasts to connect and bond over. With close to 50 mn downloads to date, Rooter is the No. 1 sports app on Google Playstore – a rank it retains since October 2020. Rooter has raised over USD 32 Mn in capital from a marque investor base and is playing a key role in driving India’s gaming creator economy. The company now envisions becoming India’s first unicorn in the game streaming space. To learn more, visit https://www.rooter.gg/ In this conversation

Interviewing Neil Zhang, Co-Founder of Frontrunner Frontrunner is a A decentralized sports prediction market built on blockchain. It is the first zero gas fee, decentralized sports prediction market built on blockchain where you get the best odds with no house edge. Frontrunner is a decentralized sports prediction market where users can buy shares of sports propositions and trade them like they would stocks or options. Unlike traditional sportsbooks where users place a bet and wait, Frontrunner gives users full control over their portfolios, allowing them to dynamically buy and sell positions as the odds change. By leveraging the power of free markets and the blockchain, we create transparent markets and liquid positions to reduce counterparty risk, create new types of sports-related markets, and fundamentally change the way in which people invest in their sports knowledge and beliefs. To learn more, visit www.getfrontrunner.com In this conversation, Neil talks about how because of a full level of control in

Interviewing Mohammed Kilany, CEO of Fanera Fanera is a sports tech startup based in UAE that aims to revolutionize football by providing fans, clubs, and sponsors with a one-single social platform to connect, engage and monetize. Fanera is also the first crowdsourced, intuitive, scalable and multi-lingual 360 degree social platform that is designed for and by football fans. It enables fans to share their favorite moments and enjoy football content created by a football community of fans, influencers, players and clubs. Fanera also works with football clubs and stadiums to facilitate the maximization of their customer engagement efforts. To learn more, visit www.fanera.co In this conversation, Mohammed talks about his background and describes himself as a middle eastern entrepreneur who started 5 companies in the last 15 years! He describes Fanera as a ‘New era for fans’. He goes on to explain how Fanera is different from other social platforms as it is targeted to bring football fans onto one platform and th

Interviewing Iker Zubizarreta, Co-Founder & CTO of Vitruve Vitruve is a Spanish tech startup that develops software and hardware applied to sports performance, focused on strength training sessions in the weight room. Where traditionally, strength training has been based on the subjective perceptions of coaches or athletes, Vitruve applies an objective approach to obtain the necessary data that will make athletes better. It is the tool used by thousands of coaches and athletes because it has the highest precision in the market with a scientific validation study that supports it. To learn more, visit www.vitruve.fit In this conversation, Iker talks about his career as an electrical engineer and his passion for sports that led him to co-founding Vitruve. He also outlines the business of Vitruve and how the focus is now on B2B with facilities being their biggest direct consumers while they also garner interests from medical facilities, strength & conditioning coaches and some individual athletes as well.

 Interviewing Rayde Luis Baez, Strategic Commercial advisor of EuroLeague Basketball EuroLeague Basketball is a European professional basketball club competition. The league is widely recognised as the top-tier league in Europe and consists of 18 teams, of which 16 are given long-term licenses and wild cards, making the league a semi-closed league. The EuroLeague is one of the most popular indoor sports leagues in the world and its in stadium attendance is second only to the National Basketball Association (NBA), To learn more, visit www.euroleaguebasketball.net In this conversation, Rayde talks about his experience in multiple roles with the EuroLeague and as a rights holder. He also gives us an insight about how they navigated the digital collectibles space by understanding their product and how they want their fans to interact with it. Rayde also takes us through the method by which they work with multiple partners in a new space in order to mitigate risks and test what works best in the market. He

Interviewing Commodore, Co-Creator at Krause House Krause House is a Decentralized Autonomous Organization (DAO) governed by a community of fans, basketball lovers and purists. s a social, gamified app for basketball fanatics where digital and IRL engagement are rewarded. Users compete to level up and earn rewards by shooting hoops and to learn more, visit https://www.krausehouse.club/ In this conversation, Commodore talks about his experience with 3 successful start-ups and how Krause House was created out of his fascination in the cultural and social side of DAO’s and the origin of the name behind it. He talks about the evolution of the structure which included an NFT sale. He also gives us insights into his goal of buying an NBA team which starts with buying minority positions in major leagues or majority positions in minor leagues and working up to an entire team. Hosted by Rohn Malhotra from SportsTechX - Data & Insights about SportsTech startups and the surrounding ecosystem.

Interviewing Henry Lowenfels, Chief Product Officer at OneTeam Partners One Team Partners is a one-of-a-kind solution that helps athletes maximize the value of their name, image, and likeness rights. OneTeam specializes in group licensing, marketing, media, and investing. Through their partnerships with Players Associations, OneTeam’s mission is to transform the way all athletes participate in business by putting them at the center of the commercial ecosystem. They develop authentic relationships between athletes and brands and deliver integrated, turnkey solutions across sponsorship, athlete marketing, content, and digital marketing. To learn more, visit www.joinoneteam.com In this conversation, Henry talks about how video games and trading cards was the focus on which the business was initially founded, surrounded by other elements of opportunity that could really bolster the licensing business. The idea of collectibility that’s associated with sports stemming from trading cards to now, digital collectibles

Interviewing David Ortiz, Founder & CEO at SimWin Sports SimWin Sports is the world's first digital sports league that provides daily fantasy players and esports fans the ability to watch, predict, collect, play and earn. It is the virtual sports metaverse that fuels 24/7 fantasy sports and sports betting action with NFL players and Hall of Fame owners! At SimWin, the teams are NFTs - owned by some of your favorite athletes and celebrities. Fans can engage with the league and earn by collecting, trading, and managing player NFTs and by participating in daily fantasy and season-long SimWin fantasy competitions. To learn more, visit simwinsports.io. In this conversation, David talks about building digital sports leagues that operate 100% of the year as opposed to fantasy leagues that run only 40% of the year, turning sports into a bingeable business. David has almost 29 years of expertise in the video game and real money gaming space and the need for a full time fantasy league and gaming experience. Hosted

Kicking off our podcast lineup for our Web3 in Sports month, we have Brian Zwerner, Founder & VC at Beyond The Game Network Beyond The Game Network is an investment community of current and former professional athletes, finance and business executives. By bringing together the best people from across a wide range of backgrounds, BTGN has created a community where their members can learn and grow together while fueling the growth of the most exciting companies in America across entertainment and fitness in the sports industry. In this conversation, Brian talks about what sparked this journey for him starting from video highlight trading cards with the NBA. He also talks about how he started the crypto executive guide to ‘tell it like it is’ for content around Web3 in sports where they post weekly news and wrap ups at the end of the week. Brian also mentions how he met an NFL player who had helped him with his previous start-up and eventually had the idea that led to setting up Beyond The Game Network. Host

Interviewing Eric Stark, Co-Founder & COO at Slate Slate is made up of a team of experienced social content & brand marketing professionals who have come together out of a passion for solving problems. Born out of the NFL, Slate is a content creation platform for brands that are advertising or have a presence on social media. Slate is trusted by the biggest brand social media teams in sports, media, entertainment -  from the NFL, NBA, & MLB to Comedy Central & Showtime. On the Slate platform brands can create branded social content, speed up content creation workflow and Slate allows companies to quickly overlay content with their own branded fonts, colors, filters, graphics and animations from a custom mobile app, and then post directly to platforms like Instagram Stories and TikTok. Brands have full control over the content in their app from a dedicated web portal. In this conversation, Eric talks about how brands must stand out from individuals across social media platforms and how Sla

Interviewing Danny Cortenraede, Founder & Managing Partner at Venturerock Venturerock is a digital venture capital platform and ecosystem of founders, backers and venture builders. They support founders who ‘dare to change systems’. Venture rock has combined technology and our expertise in accelerating 700+ startups to design a new investment protocol that enables founders and their teams to focus on execution, instead of fundraising. This September, Venturerock Launched a $75 Million Sports Tech Venture Investment Company. In this conversation, Danny talks about his journey that started in the corporate world within sales and marketing that slowly evolved into entrepreneurial activities moving on to to new cities and setting up huge venture funds. He also sheds light on the newly launched VIC (Venture Investment Company) which includes athlete investors including former Dutch soccer player Mark van Bommel and former New York Jets cornerback Bryson Keeton. He takes us through the 72-step, four-phase progr

Interviewing Sandy Khaund, Founder & CEO @Credenza Credenza enables brands, sports, luxury goods and entertainment clients to integrate web3 technologies into existing operations to enhance direct-to-fan/consumer relationships and create new revenue streams both online and offline. Credenza’s vision of web3 and traditional retail unite to enhance customer experience and engagement. In this conversation, Sandy talks about his journey as an individual working with Fortune 500 companies, investor & now a founder. He also talks about his journey of founding his company Upgraded which was eventually acquired by Ticketmaster/Live Nation in September 2018. He then founded Credenza with a purpose of bringing Web3 tech to sports, entertainment, brands. He then speaks about how blockchain can essentially solve a lot of problems and add value. He then speaks about how NFTs are moving on from a novelty item to becoming a utility item with a lot of use cases. He then moves on to speak about how they at Credenza ar

Interviewing David Hernando, Head of Strategy @SportBoost SportBoost is an accelerator and co-investment platform that specializes in sport, innovation and technology. The accelerator is founded by Spanish legendary footballer Iker Casilas and has partnered with La Liga as their main partner, Wayra is the co-investing partner and ESIC is their educational partner.  SportBoost was formed around innovation, entrepreneurship and investment in sport and provides selected startups with the necessary resources to help them on their way to success. Earlier this month LaLiga Tech & SportBoost launched an open call for Fan Engagement startups to apply for their flagship program, the applications to which are open until the 15th of July 2022. Find out more at https://www.sportboost.es/challenge In this conversation, David talks about how the accelerator supports startups and initiatives with their network, their knowledge and their mentorship from within the SportBoost system and from experts within the sports

Interviewing Federico Smanio, Program Director of WeSportUp WeSportUp is Italy’s first innovation hub accelerator specifically for health and wellness. The accelerator is part of the initiative of CDP Venture Capital along with Sport and Health and is managed by Startupbootcamp and Wylab. Fastweb, Renault and Telepass are the corporate partners for WeSportUp. The applications to their flagship 3-month accelerator program are open until the 30th of June 2022. Find out more at https://www.wesportup.it In this conversation, Federico talks about his dual career and his journey as a professional footballer in the Italian Serie B league to the program director of Italy’s first sports accelerator - WeSportUp. The national innovation fund and the government's involvement in the accelerator. The structure of the accelerator involves two public entities, private partners and commercial corporations. He also talks about the invitation to the flagship accelerator for which 20 startups will be shortlisted of which 10 will

Interviewing Thomas Euler, Founder and CEO of Liquiditeam Liquiditeam is tokenizing fandom by using blockchain. It is a fan engagement and financing solutions for professional sports, clubs, athletes and content creators. It enables everyone who has fans to build their own platform. Liquiditeam also uses Web3 content and community management systems. Liquiditeam works at the intersection of three exciting worlds: Professional Sports, the Creator Economy, and Blockchain. Find out more at https://www.liquidi.team/ In this conversation, Thomas talks about how liquiditeam is likened to the shopify of fan engagement. He speaks about the convergence of three exciting worlds and the future of fan engagement. Hosted by Rohn Malhotra from SportsTechX - Data & Insights about SportsTech startups and the surrounding ecosystem.

Interviewing Anirudh Pandita, Founder @Loco Loco is India's leading live game streaming platform that is building the future gaming community in the country. Viewers can watch gaming videos all at one place. What started as a live trivia game show app developed into a platform for India's best upcoming and top gamers and hosts them as they play and stream the top trending games. It also allows fans to follow, support, and engage with the streamers. Find out more at https://loco.gg/ In this conversation, Anirudh talks about releasing a bunch of new features that will make viewing for fans much more interactive. He speaks about how Loco initially launched as a trivia game show app and evolved into a gaming streaming platform as they believe that entertainment is a need and the two biggest trends were short videos and interactive entertainment. He touches upon the evolution of gaming and the way the rest of the world knows it - the right mix of skill and strategy and about developing a new content vertical, a ne