More Than a Game: Using Tech to Increase Sports Participation

October 27, 2023

News, features & insights from the world of SportsTech. Every Week.

Rounding out our Innovation in CricketTech month we have a guest article from a former pro sportsman, Runish Gudkha.

Runish talks about his learnings, from developing as a professional cricketer in Kenya to now a startup founder in the UK. He doesn’t talk about making the Kenyan Cricket World Cup squad in 2011. We’ll do that on his behalf.

He is now the CEO of BatFast, a company that found it’s origins in Cricket but has since grown into other sports.

There’s an announcement about the 5th edition of our Global SportsTech VC Report which will be out in about a month. 

And the deadline for our SportsTechX Startup Spotlight is fast approaching. It’s next Monday, Oct 30th, so get those applications in. 

Plus some fun news stories. Happy reading 

Feature Article

More Than a Game: Using Tech to Increase Sports Participation

This week’s guest article is by Runish Gudkha, the CEO of BatFast.

A former professional cricketer in Kenya, Runish moved to the UK and became increasingly frustrated at the barriers preventing him from playing, competing and improving his game.

In the article, Runish looks at the reasons behind declining sports participation, a fact in the US, Europe and other parts of the world. And importantly, what can be done to improve these numbers.

Sports governing bodies are looking for ways to attract new players while retaining existing ones. This is a big reason that sports is so obsessed with connecting with Gen Z and Gen Alpha, trying to hold their ever shortening attention span. Tech can help in this journey, especially from a sports facilities perspective.

Interesting stuff. Read on.

And of course, he does tell us how Batfast helps this. Runish was also on our podcast, link to that later in the newsletter.

SportsTechX Startup Spotlight

SportsTechX presents Startup Spotlight

We want to hear from the best startups in sports, fitness, or gaming. 

And we want to shine the STX spotlight on them.

Here’s how this goes. Pretty simple.

  1. Click on the link below to submit an application

  2. Shortlisted companies will be invited to virtually pitch to a jury in early November.

  3. The winner will get media coverage and SportsTechX services worth over €10,000. Including a feature in the next edition of our Global SportsTech VC Report, out in late November.

Applications close on October 30th.  Send in your entries right here.

Global SportsTech VC Report 2023: Coming Soon

We’re about a month away from publishing the 5th edition of our SportsTech VC Report, summarising what’s been a really interesting year so far for SportsTech. 

Dealflow is at a low, not a lot money going around. Yet interest has never been higher with new funds are being almost announced every week. Curious times. We’ll get into it.

Word to startups, investors and other interested stakeholders: partnership options available. Reach out if you want to be involved.

Top News from the World of SportsTech

Andre Iguodala’s retirement plan is out: he’s set up a $200m VC fund. Already a seasoned tech investor, plans include NBA ownership. Better than a gold watch, that’s for sure.

Netflix will make its live sports debut, sort of, by airing a ‘meant to be friendly but likely to get quite competitive’ Golf event between F1 Drivers and Pro Golfers. Quite the crossover between F1’s Drive to Survive and the PGA Tour’s Full Swing.

 The International Olympic Committee (IOC) has announced that it is ‘exploring’ plans to create an Olympic Esports Games. The featured games were already a part of the Tokyo Olympics, now this will be a separate event.

 Peloton will offer live NBA and WNBA games from compatible devices via its new entertainment hub, marking the first time it has paired live sports broadcasts with its products. #SweatToWatch.

  Disney+ Hotstar set a new viewership record during the highly anticipated India-Pakistan Cricket World Cup match. The peak concurrent viewership on the streaming platform was nearly 35 million. For context, that would put it 6th on the (NFL dominated) list of most watched sports events of 2023 (till July). 

Recycled carbon fibre is now a thing at McLaren Racing who are working together with innovative composites company, V Carbon. The cutting-edge material was trialed at the US Grand Prix.

Funding News:

 VideoVerse, an AI-powered video solutions company, recently acquired Optikka to expand media, design, and publishing capabilities within its own content automation platform, Magnifi.ai

Valley based Tennis AI company SwingVision, raised $6M in Series A funding. Check out our podcast with them if you want to know more.

Gemini Sports Analytics, a no-code AI platform for predictive modeling, completed a $3.25 million investment round. And our podcast with them is right here.

Indian SportsTech startup Game Theory raised $2 million in pre-series A funding.

Zelus Analytics, a sports analytics company helping player evaluations and in-game decision-making, raised a Series A funding round.

 Populous received minority investment from Providence Equity Partners.

Latest from our Channels

#185 BatFast: Re-engineering Sports with AI-driven Coaching and Insights. Watch the full video here.

In conversation with Runish Gudhka, CEO of BatFast, the global sports technology company using data, augmented reality, machine learning, and robotics to re-engineer how sports are played. 

Podcast Throwback Thursday

 #157 Courtside Ventures: The leading early-stage fund focused on Sports, Lifestyle, and Gaming. Watch the full video here. 

All our podcasts are now available as Vodcasts on our YouTube channel. We will be publishing new episodes and back catalogue from the year simultaneously so there’s plenty to watch.

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