Sportlight, a tech startup that gives participant efficiency information to skilled soccer groups, has raised £4m from buyers together with the proprietor of Southampton FC.
Oxfordshire-based Sportlight tracks athletes’ performances and provides analytics to shoppers, together with Premier League soccer golf equipment, to provide them a greater understanding of gamers and their talents.
The startup makes use of LiDAR (Mild Detection and Ranging) know-how, which is often used in the autonomous vehicle industry.
In an interview with UKTN, Sportlight CEO Raf Keustermans mentioned LiDAR is a “considerably extra correct solution to measure motion and velocity” than methods historically used to trace athlete information.
“This isn’t an iteration of one thing that’s already on the market, this can be a fully new core know-how that we’re utilizing that has solely simply change into viable to make use of on this trade,” Keustermans informed UKTN.
The brand new fundraising for Sportlight has given the corporate a £12m valuation, suggesting a rising urge for food amongst buyers for information and analytical options in sport.
Talking concerning the function of information in sport, Keustermans informed UKTN that “it’s solely going to get greater”.
He mentioned: “The underlying pattern is just going in a single route, know-how and information have gotten essential components {of professional} sports activities.”
The funding spherical included the Southampton FC majority stakeholder, Sport Republic. Additionally taking part within the spherical have been Bolt Ventures and Andy Younger, the previous CFO of Metropolis Soccer Group, homeowners of Premier League champions Manchester Metropolis.
Keustermans has described the corporate’s aim as “to change into the gold commonplace, finally changing legacy applied sciences as the primary supply of information for skilled sports activities organisations”.
Sportlight has mentioned it presently works with a “majority of Premier League groups” and can also be trying to work with different sporting our bodies.
Keustermans mentioned that whereas the corporate is presently targeted on the Premier League, it’s in early talks about increasing to the opposite main European soccer leagues, in addition to the US’s Nationwide Basketball Affiliation (NBA).
