It’s not common for a tech startup get a shoutout during a high-profile sports event press conference.
But that’s what happened in June after golf superstar Bryson DeChambeau won the prestigious U.S. Open tournament.
“Sportsbox AI — we’ve been gathering a lot of really cool data,” DeChambeau said in response to a question about what’s helped support his recent success.
It was a massive vote of confidence in the 4-year-old startup based in Bellevue, Wash.
Sportsbox AI has developed motion capture tech that creates a detailed 3D model of a golf swing and measures hundreds of data points from video recorded by a smartphone. It’s a unique way to quantify movement within a golf swing and identify areas of improvement.
DeChambeau took a close look at his swing data from the app, a week before the U.S. Open. Sportsbox helped him figure out what was causing a slight miss to the right on his golf shots.
He made a swing change, and then won a U.S. Open.
“It was an entrepreneur’s dream come true,” Sportsbox CEO Jeehae Lee said of the role her company was able to play in DeChambeau’s big win.
Now the startup wants get its app into the hands of more golfers.
Sportsbox has mostly focused on selling its app to coaches, who use it during instruction with students.
But anyone can download the app and assess their own swing.
“We want to make it educational, but still useful to the average golfer,” said Lee, a former professional golfer and TopGolf executive who helped launch Sportsbox in 2020.
As an avid golfer, I wanted to check out Sportsbox. I stopped by Evergreen Golf Club, an indoor golf center near Seattle that uses Sportsbox as a teaching tool (its co-founder also happens to be DeChambeau’s caddy).
“It lets you see how you’re moving in space,” said Robby Hipp, director of player development at Evergreen. “For an instructor, it shortens the time to identify root cause issues.”
The app measures “chest turn,” “pelvis sway,” and several other aspects of the swing.
After recording some of my swings, we were able to watch the 3D model. Austin Nutt, another instructor at Evergreen, suggested a wider chest turn for more power. The degree metrics on the app helped show the exact changes needed.
After I got home, I could watch the videos in the Sportsbox app and communicate with the coaches.
I’m not sure Sportsbox can catch on with mainstream golfers using the app on their own. I found it a bit difficult to understand all the data and suggestions, though I haven’t spend a lot of time with the app. It definitely helped using the technology with the instructors at Evergreen.
Sportsbox faces competition, too. Other smartphone apps — such as GolfFix and Sparrow — also use AI and swing analysis tech to help golfers hit better shots.
But they don’t have the backing from one of the best — and geekiest — pro golfers. DeChambeau recently joined the company as an investor following his U.S. Open win.
“After seeing the power of data-driven decision-making in my golf swing, I really wanted to be part of the company to build the future of golf with them,” he said in a statement.
There are more than 100,000 golfers using the app, and thousands of coaches.
Sportsbox generates revenue from coaches who pay an annual fee. Consumers can access premium features in the app for $15.99 per month or $110 per year. The company also has partnerships with broadcasters including Sky Sports and Golf Channel, as well as golf instruction centers.
Sportsbox is looking beyond golf and has started testing its technology for baseball-related applications. One of the company’s investors is Elysian Park Ventures, led by owners of the Los Angeles Dodgers.
The startup originally launched out of AI Thinktank, a Bellevue, Wash.-based incubator for AI ideas founded by tech veterans Mike Kennewick and Rich Kennewick. They’re the brothers who founded Voicebox Technologies, an early leader in speech recognition and natural language tech that sold in 2018.
Samuel Menaker, former vice president of engineering at Voicebox, is CTO and co-founder of Sportsbox.
Sportsbox has raised more than $9 million and employs about 20 people.
https://ift.tt/p5ML6Y3 September 21, 2024 at 03:00PM GeekWire
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