Start-up Wind Enters Sports Arena


BENGALURU: The wind of “start-ups” has swept through India in an expansive way. The trend has awarded the population with the urge to venture down the entrepreneurial road; Indian economy too received a startling facelift. It has witnessed entrepreneurs experimenting with new ideas and industry segments, trying to tap any avenue with potential. With numerous sports leagues emerging and a young population with passion and growing financial capability, the time couldn’t be more suitable for start-ups to start playing their ball in the sports arena; while the space is still nascent. Sports enthusiasts, former amateur sports people and passionate fans have gone ahead with ideas such as e-tailing and sports analytics to leverage the country’s love for sports to monetize on the untapped potentials. Presented below are six start-ups changing the game reports, by John Sarkar, Anand J & Aparna Desikan, The Times of India.

Sports Mechanics

Run by a former sportsperson, Subramanian Ramakrishnan, Sports Mechanics is a sports analytics start-up operating from Chennai that boasts BCCI, Mumbai Indians, Royal Challengers and Hockey India as clients. Today the firm has Aarthi Sehwag and Anjali Tendulkar as its stake holders, holding 25% and 35% respectively.

SlamdunQ

Madhuvanthi A’s passion towards sports right from her school days had inspired her to give up her corporate job and co-found SlamdunQ along with Sakhee Mody and Venkat R. The company was founded to assist players in improving their performance; SlamdunQ’s app can be downloaded on any wearable device, which then transfers the player’s movement data to remotely located coaches, who analyze and provide valuable inputs to the player. SlamdunQ, early this year had won the Google Launchpad contest.

Fantain

Engaging fans and connecting them to teams and franchises has been successful as a business in western countries. A sport from the perspective of a fan had been overlooked in India; but today teams realize that extended engagement with fans not only means a larger fan base but also translates to commercial value in the form of tickets and merchandises. Anand and Aravind Ramachandran along with Vivek Venugopalan started a similar platform, Fantain, in 2012. Fantain leverages analytics to measure fan engagement and helps teams and franchises cash in on their fan’s behaviors. The company has Hyderabad Sun Risers and Kolkata Knight Riders as its existing clients, with plans to add 30 more by the end of this year. Recently Fantain has been acquired by BookMyShow for an undisclosed amount.

Retisense

With focus on a player, Anshuman Singh founded Retisense, a firm which utilizes biomechanics and sensors to predict the chance of injuries for athletes. Retisense has most of its clients based in the US or Europe.

Turf Sports Management

Sachin Khurana saw the huge potential of investing in Indian sports arena and experimented with a unique idea that proved to be lucrative as well. His company, Turf Sports Management leases idle grounds from academic institutions and rents them to corporates for T20 matches. The company also holds other sports events at different levels. Apart from events the company also offers sports tours and sports academics.  

Sports365

Sports e-tailing is a rapidly growing segment with very few dedicated players in the scene. Sports365, a sports e-tailer was launched only four years ago; its revenue for the last year hovered between five to six million US dollars. Citing the current market trends the company targets to shoot the revenues up by two folds to around $11 million this year.

It is not unknown that investors exercise extreme caution while moving forward, especially if the concerned market is small or new.  Being in the nascent stage, the start-ups playing in the sports space find it difficult to inspire confidence among their potential investors. Ravi Narayan, CEO in residence at Microsoft Ventures in an interview with The Times of India remarked that the interest in this segment is growing owing to multiple leagues in various sports that have emerged in the last few years. But for these startups to realize commercial success, it is imperative that the fans involved in the particular sport develop deep support for their teams.

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