Sports Media Report
DDSports Inc. (ShotTracker), a revolutionary sports technology that captures rich performance data via sensors and provides statistics and analytics with sub-second latency, today announced a new round of financing by Hearst Ventures, the venture capital unit of Hearst. The $2 million USD investment by Hearst Ventures is in addition to an $11 million USD investment led by Evertz Technologies Limited (Evertz) and Verizon Ventures, which was announced earlier this year and completes the current funding round for the company.
“We are proud to have brought on Hearst Ventures as our latest investment partner,” said ShotTracker Chief Executive Officer Bill Moses. “Their expertise and knowledge of the media partnerships space will be pivotal as we refine and grow not just our offering to NCAA men’s and women’s basketball programs, but to broadcast partners as well. That broadcast integration has been the most requested element for our technology and we feel will be a key for our growth in the coming years.”
“Our goal with ShotTracker from day one is to go beyond the work we do with our partner schools,” said ShotTracker Co-Founder and President Davyeon Ross. “This investment, on top of our work with Evertz and Verizon Ventures, gives us a much wider runway and a greater opportunity for scaling success of our business going forward. We will continue to focus on our platform for NCAA men’s and women’s basketball, but additional opportunities are now coming into focus that will make this partnership very important for us.”
“ShotTracker’s autonomous, low-latency data collection is giving broadcasters, fans and other sports data consumers unprecedented insights in real time,” said Hearst Ventures Managing Director David Famolari, who will also be joining ShotTracker’s board of directors. “We see this as key to innovating the viewing experience and delivering data-driven storylines and visualizations that bring fans into the action in new and compelling ways. Bill, Davyeon and the ShotTracker team are leading the industry in developing technology to make unique sports data immediately actionable across a range of use cases.”
ShotTracker currently brings elite-level, real-time analytics to the court. The company’s patented technology tracks data in three parts: a ShotTracker-enabled ball, sensors on players’ jerseys and court sensors that map the court in 3D. Data is processed through the company’s proprietary algorithm displayed on the ShotTracker app and dashboard and is also integrated with Evertz’s cloud-based live production solutions. The real-time data can be used to automate camera productions from remote locations and can be licensed by media and sports data companies and will be enhanced by all the innovation Verizon is bringing through their cutting-edge work in 5G.
