Sports Technology Startup Receives Investment
Hunter Hawley
A Bloomington-based sports technology startup has been awarded $20,000 in funding from Indianapolis-based Elevate Ventures. Blueprint Stats says its technology uses human analysis and machine learning of videos to help high school sports teams improve their game.
The startup says the funding, from the Elevate Ventures Community Ideation Fund, will help it develop computer-vision models to record data previously unseen in the sports world. Blueprint Stats expects to pilot the models by the start of the 2020-21 basketball season.
“Hunter is the type of entrepreneur who is a complete pleasure to work with,” said Cy Megnin, Elevate Ventures entrepreneur-in-residence. “He asks great questions and takes feedback constructively. He asks for the good and the bad, constantly trying to improve. We are impressed with Blueprint Stats’ initial traction and are encouraged by the early adoption in the marketplace.”
Blueprint Stats was started in 2017 by founder Hunter Hawley, now a student at Indiana University’s Kelley School of Business. The startup says teams can upload videos to a web application and receive data such from a statistician.
Last season, the startup says 25 high school basketball teams across the country signed up for Blueprint Stats’ service. The company recorded over 80,000 timestamped statistical data points across over 500 basketball game films.
“As uncertainty is increasing not only around the future of sports, but around nearly everything, this funding gives us the confidence we need to look for opportunities and act on them,” said Hawley. “In a time where everyone is playing defense, this just means we get to play offense.”
The Community Ideation Fund is made possible through a partnership with Velocities, a collaboration between Elevate Ventures, the Dimension Mill, and the Columbus Area Chamber of Commerce. The Community Ideation Fund is available through the state’s 21st Century Research and Technology Fund, overseen by the Indiana Economic Development Corp.