SportAI has secured its second publicized commercial contract, this time with pickleball and beach tennis equipment manufacturer Shark.
As part of the deal, terms of which were not disclosed, SportAI is developing an AI-powered coaching app for pickleball and beach tennis-playing Shark customers. The platform will leverage SportAI’s computer vision algorithms to provide technique analyses -- encompassing player movement, swing curves, ball striking metrics and more -- as well as generative AI for personalized training and equipment recommendations.
“[One of the groups] we really wanted to go after was equipment brands and retailers who want this data in for product development, but also product recommendations,” SportAI co-founder & CEO Lauren Pedersen told SBJ. “It’s super exciting for us.”
The app is currently in development and expected to release later this year.
Pedersen said SportAI’s models analyzing tennis and padel are more advanced than pickleball and beach tennis, but the Oslo-based startup continues to invest in technical development. SportAI closed a $1.8M seed round led by Skyfall Ventures last August and announced an additional $805K of funding through grants from Innovation Norway and Eurostars in January.
SportAI signed its first commercial contract, to supply its software for racket sports booking platform MATCHi’s tennis and padel courts, late last year. In addition to federations and academies (for coaching use-cases) and equipment manufacturers, the company is targeting broadcast clients as well.
