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The Techstars Sports Accelerator Powered by Indy program on Monday revealed 13 out-of-state companies that have been chosen for its 2023 class.
The start-ups will participate in an immersive 13-week mentorship program and receive $120,000 in upfront funding, along with anywhere from $100,000 to $200,000 in additional seed-funding rounds.
Boulder, Colorado-based Techstars began its sports accelerator program in Indianapolis in 2019. Four other classes consisting of 44 participants have previously participated in the program and have gone on to raise nearly $100 million in outside capital. Those firms include Project Admission, Curastory, PlayerData, Ergatta, Tennibot and Flexia.
The program focuses on various aspects of fundraising, preparation, networking and deployment, said Jordan Fliegel, managing director of the Techstars Sports Accelerator.
The program will conclude Aug. 22-24 with a three-day One Zero conference at the NCAA headquarters in downtown Indianapolis. The conference will include a demonstration day for the start-ups, giving them an opportunity to showcase their products to hundreds of players in the sports technology industry.
Indiana is hoping to use Techstars, as well as the recently launched SportsTech HQ organization, as a springboard to attract more sports-focused businesses to the state.
Founding Partners of the accelerator include the Next Level Fund/50 South Capital, Pacers Sports & Entertainment, NCAA and Indiana Sports Corp. Supporting partners are the Indianapolis Colts, NTT IndyCar Series and the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.
This year’s companies, which were selected from hundreds of applicants, work in numerous categories in the growing industry, including streaming, artificial intelligence, ticketing, wearable merchandise, sports media, and name, image and likeness.
The 13 companies selected for the 2023 program:
Conquer (New York City) — A marketplace connecting players, organizers, and venues for local sports games, with a focus on making better use of underused space.
Crosscourt (Los Angeles) — Social basketball club that offers a fitness-focused program through one-hour, 15-player pickup basketball games.
DaVinci Wearables (Boston) — A wearable that helps women monitor their menstrual cycle and create artificial intelligence-guided training plans.
Ganance (Chicago) — A modular adapter that converts traditional watches into smart watches, tracking health data and providing notifications in a manner similar to what’s done with smart watches.
Jetsweat (New York City) — A software-as-a-service platform that provides fitness and physical therapy programming.
Magpie (New York City) — A sales automation and point-of-sale platform that helps collectible sellers grow their revenue by reducing the needs for data entry and increasing profit margins.
Neatsy (Menlo Park, California) — Turns a phone camera into a remote health diagnostics tool for musculoskeletal and orthopedic uses, through a monthly subscription that offers personalized physical therapy, recovery, shoe fitting and orthotics.
Rootnote (Nashville) — Aggregates metrics and insights from applications, tools and platforms for entertainment brands.
Scout (Clifton Park, New York) — Investing platform focused on wealth preservation for college athletes, offering access to educational information on spending habits, tax liabilities, as well as spending and investing.
Siq (New York City) — Analysis platform for basketball players to help improve their shot, using shot tracking and analytics based on a sensor, artificial intelligence, and an application that offers feedback in real-time on shooting form, consistency and accuracy.
SoBet (Nashville) — Sports betting media platform with short-form betting content from independent experts, focused on giving fans an avenue to make better-informed decisions.
The Highlights App (Miami) — An app for the latest sports highlights, offering a more streamlined design, meant to help fans find video clips faster.
Wiistream (Cork, Ireland) — A streaming service company meant to offer content distribution, audience interaction and revenue generation for sports and entertainment enterprises.
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