Birds are singing. Flowers are starting to bloom in my neighborhood. And some fresh capital is pouring into the sports tech scene yet again.
Welcome to the SBJ Tech Funding Round(up) for Q1 2026. In my two-plus years of doing this, we’ve never had the quarter end one day and the roundup run the next. Look at that turnaround!
Let’s dive right in with a look at the numbers, along with three key takeaways.
Whoopin’ it up
Right at the buzzer, Whoop announced a whopping funding round Tuesday to just squeak into this quarterly installment. The company raised $575 million at a $10.1-billion valuation.
A couple of things stand out from the reporting of my colleague Joe Lemire. For starters, while Collaborative Fund led the round, the involvement of Abbott and Mayo Clinic is a clear indicator that Whoop continues to evolve as both a consumer-facing product and a tool for medical research. Also, CEO Will Ahmed said this money lets Whoop invest more into key areas of the business, specifically mentioning research and development.
If I had to guess, that would include even more focus on AI enhancements to the tech and analysis Whoop brings to its users. More than two years ago now, Whoop rolled out a generative AI coach. As Whoop chugs along toward an IPO, I bet a lot more innovation comes with it.
It’s a hot time to be a wearables manufacturer. At the end of 2025, Oura raised $900 million. In a related note, I’ve started sketching mockups of my own wearable products that will be available later this year. Editor’s note: This is a joke. I would make a terrible product.
Tackling youth sports
As the business potential of youth sports grows, more companies are pouring in to find their spot in the massive sector. Otto Sport AI, a youth sports management platform, emerged earlier this year with a focus on lacrosse, soccer and volleyball. Interestingly, the platform looks to ease the life of all in the bubble around competition: players, coaches, parents and even recruiters looking for talent to take to the collegiate level.
Diamond Kinetics raised $12 million to bolster its livestreaming and building of AI-automated highlights. And NurivaTech is bringing biomechanics to baseball and softball (for all levels of play) with an $8 million raise and its first product, SportFX, which uses a smartphone’s camera to analyze swings via computer vision and provide recommendations for improvement.
A new player
Finally, you may have noticed a recurring lead in these rounds. Game Changers Ventures has hit the scene by backing three of these early-stage startups.
GCV is the newest investment vehicle of Roger Ehrenberg, the founder and managing partner of Eberg Capital, a firm holding stakes in sports teams like the Marlins, Real Salt Lake and the Alpine F1 Racing Team. GCV focuses on sports, media, gambling and entertainment, and the three Q1 investments indicate a keen interest in data and operations. Case in point:
- Equipe looks to enhance college sports by developing a data platform that produces wholistic views of individual fans. (I am a big believer in the Equipe platform after getting a walkthrough recently, and the fact that their first client was the Texas athletics department doesn’t hurt, either.)
- Arkero is an operational platform trying to streamline game-day planning and add more efficiency to the process with AI.
- idPair is an infrastructure layer looking to unify the self-exclusion process (when a person essentially raises their hand and says “do not let me play these games right now for my own well-being”) around betting and gaming.
GCV is creating a unique portfolio in these early days, and I’m intrigued to see what other companies might spark their investment.
Other rounds covered by SBJ in Q1 2026:
- The 33rd Team
- Whistle Performance
- Faves
- The Realest
- Novig
- SportIQ
- Recentive Analytics (recently named to the latest cohort of SBJ’s 10 Most Innovative Sports Tech Companies)
