Daniel Benchimol thought it was value a shot. He had nothing to lose.

Shortly after founding the Highlights App in 2021, Benchimol utilized to Techstars Boulder, an acclaimed accelerator program that has backed greater than 200 startup firms since 2007. Never thoughts that at that time, Benchimol solely knew that he wished the Highlights App to be a spot the place sports activities followers may watch highlights in an easy-to-digest, fast method. The firm had no product, no income and no offers in place to point out any highlights.

Still, Benchimol was offered on the concept and made it to the ultimate spherical of the applying course of earlier than Techstars rejected his firm, because it does with most candidates. Undeterred, Benchimol late final yr utilized to a different program run by Techstars, an funding firm that runs a number of accelerators annually and appears to establish promising firms and entrepreneurs.

This time, the Highlights App was accepted to the Techstars Sports Accelerator, a 13-week program at present going down in Indianapolis.

“It was probably some of the best news that we’ve had,” Benchimol mentioned. “It’s a great accomplishment.”

Since its first yr in 2019, Techstars’ sports activities platform has turn into a preferred program for early-stage firms trying to achieve entry to funding in addition to an unlimited community of contacts.

This yr, Techstars and its companions chosen 13 firms to take part out of a number of hundred that utilized. The program runs from June via August, concluding subsequent week with a demo day on the One-Zero Sports & Tech Summit in Indianapolis, the place the startups will demonstrate their services and products in entrance of an viewers of buyers and executives.

Jordan Fliegel, managing director of the Techstars Sports accelerator, mentioned the percentages of stepping into this system are larger than getting accepted to Harvard. Most of the businesses that Techstars chooses obtain referrals from founders who’ve gone via this system beforehand or from one of many 500 or so enterprise capital corporations that Techstars has relationships with via its varied accelerators.

Fliegel went via a Techstars program in Boston a couple of decade in the past after he based Coach Up, an internet service that connects gamers with skilled coaches in a number of sports activities. They can practice one-on-one or in teams and even nearly via video evaluation, movie overview or different strategies. Fliegel, a former faculty basketball participant at Bowdoin College in Maine, additionally based a enterprise capital agency, Founders First, that invests in early-stage firms throughout varied industries.

For the sports activities accelerator, Techstars has partnered with just a few organizations in Indianapolis, which has hosted this system annually and turn into a hub for sports activities expertise startups. The founding companions are the NCAA, which has had its headquarters in Indianapolis since 1999; Pacers Sports & Entertainment, the dad or mum firm that owns the Indiana Pacers and Indiana Fever; Indiana Sports Corp., a nonprofit sports activities fee; and the Next Level Indiana Fund, which the Indiana General Assembly fashioned in 2017 to put money into firms.

The program’s supporting companions are the Indianapolis Colts; Indianapolis Motor Speedway; and the NTT IndyCar Series.

The companions not solely have invested cash within the accelerator program and helped select the startups. They have additionally made quite a few executives and staff out there to mentor the startup founders, providing recommendation on run their companies, deal with staff, elevate cash and different matters.

“Indiana is a sports crazy place,” Fliegel mentioned. “Indiana’s the home of basketball. It’s the home of (auto) racing. It’s the home of sports tourism. It’s the home of collegiate sports…Sports is like a core business in the state of Indiana, and they’re really good at it and collaborative.”

He added: “They go out of their way to make our companies feel welcome and recognized and to provide value, too, by opening up the doors…It’s not just capital. It’s also the resources and employees they have at those organizations.”

Steve Simon, a Pacers Sports government whose household owns the corporate, mentioned the Techstars Sports accelerator is an ideal match for Indianapolis. The metropolis has hosted quite a few main occasions, together with eight NCAA males’s basketball Final Fours (most not too long ago in 2021), Super Bowl XLVI in February 2012 and the College Football Playoff National Championship in January 2022. Indianapolis would be the website of the 2024 NBA All-Star Game and the 2026 and 2029 NCAA males’s basketball Final Fours, as effectively.

Even earlier than the Techstars program started, Simon mentioned he approached Scott Dorsey, a longtime buddy and former fraternity brother at Indiana University within the late Eighties. Dorsey was the Indiana Sports Corp.’s chairman and a profitable businessman and entrepreneur who co-founded an organization, ExactTarget, that went public in 2012 and was acquired a yr later by Salesforce.com in a deal that valued ExactTarget at $2.5 billion.

Simon requested Dorsey about beginning a program for sports activities expertise startups via High Alpha, a enterprise studio that Dorsey based that invests in early-stage software program firms.

“(Dorsey) came back to me and said, ‘Hey, look, I think that’s great. We can always work on stuff together, but what if we put a consortium together with Techstars?’” Simon mentioned.

That concept resonated with Simon, and he and Dorsey helped get the opposite companions concerned, as effectively.

“Indianapolis over 20 years, in a very thoughtful way with a couple of catalysts, has become a great place to build businesses,” Simon mentioned. “I think it’s a real piece of a differentiated DNA of the city. We’re doing a lot of things well.”

Through its involvement with Techstars, Pacers Sports has the prospect to see startups up shut, be taught from them and put money into promising firms. Pacers Sports was an early investor in Ergatta, a linked rowing machine that was a part of the primary Techstars Sports accelerator in 2019. Ergatta was valued at $200 million two years in the past after securing $30 million in a Series A spherical.

“(The Techstars program) is a nice piece of the puzzle of continuing to evolve how we’re looking at our businesses, how we’re reaching our consumers, how we’re creating content, how we’re working on engagement,” Simon mentioned. “We’re always relentlessly curious. We’re helping (the startups), and they’re helping our insights and our thinking about how our businesses are evolving and where we’re going.”

Techstars invests $120,000 in every of the startups chosen for the sports activities accelerator program and receives frequent and most well-liked fairness in these firms. Techstars may also take part in any follow-on choices. All informed, the 44 firms that participated in earlier Techstars Sports accelerators raised almost $100 million in outdoors capital.

The program consists of digital conferences every day in June, and the startups all journey to Indianapolis in July and August for the in-person portion of the accelerator. Each of the startups works with quite a few mentors, together with executives, buyers and founders who’ve efficiently raised cash and offered their firms.

“What kind of separates us from a typical (venture capital fund) is that mentorship component, the network component,” Fliegel mentioned. “We spend so much time with companies. We go really deep in their businesses. We’re almost like a small co-founder on their cap table.”

This yr’s class consists of startups in varied facets of the sports activities expertise trade similar to wearables, over-the-top streaming, ticketing and synthetic intelligence.

SIQ Basketball, for example, manufactures an official dimension and weight basketball that has {hardware} inside it. By connecting the basketball to a cell app, gamers can observe what number of photographs they make or miss in addition to the discharge angle, launch velocity and distance of every shot.

SIQ was based in 2012 by Harri Hohteri, a pc scientist who performed faculty {and professional} basketball in Finland. Hohteri is at present the corporate’s chief product officer, whereas Erik Anderson is its chief government.

Anderson, a former Techstars worker who was an early investor in SIQ, took over as SIQ’s CEO in January 2021. Since then, the corporate has raised $4.5 million of funding, most of which has gone into creating the product, which Anderson mentioned “is insanely hard to do” as a result of the expertise has to resist the climate, temperature, impression of bouncing the ball repeatedly and different components.

“We’ve now got the hardware to a place where we’re really happy with where it’s at and confident it’s ready to be taken to market in a large way,” Anderson mentioned.

For now, SIQ sells its basketball on its web site and thru Amazon.com for $139, which incorporates an annual membership that offers gamers entry to the info collected. After the primary yr, gamers should pay $99 per yr for the subscription. Anderson mentioned SIQ has about 3,000 subscribers.

SIQ can be creating a wise valve expertise that can be utilized to increase to volleyball, soccer, soccer and different sports activities. The firm is in talks to license the expertise to giant manufacturers and firms which have main distribution channels and advertising expertise.

Anderson mentioned he wasn’t all for different accelerators as a result of SIQ has been round for some time and will not profit from such applications, however he was intrigued on the Techstars program as a result of it was narrowly targeted on sports activities and never simply expertise on the whole.

“I think each company has their own goal,” Anderson mentioned. “I’m interested in lining up the next fundraise because we’ve taken our product to market. We’ve figured out a lot of things that we need to figure out. But there’s always the serendipity of, ‘Hey, you should meet this person,’ or the serendipity of having access to people who you normally would have never even known to talk to and whatever opportunities come of that.”

While the Highlights App is at an earlier stage than SIQ, Benchimol mentioned he was additionally drawn to the Techstars program as a option to be taught from individuals who have been within the sports activities trade for years and succeeded at a excessive degree.

Benchimol, a local of Argentina, labored at two streaming companies (Fubo TV and Fanatiz) earlier than founding the Highlights App in late 2021 with Humberto Ciffoni, a veteran sports activities rights acquisition government. The Highlights App raised $700,000 in a pre-seed spherical and formally launched earlier this yr in Chile, Colombia and Peru, the place it reveals highlights of European and South American soccer in addition to tennis, golf and motorsports.

The Highlights App should strike rights offers with leagues or groups to point out highlights, which may be expensive and time-consuming, however Benchimol mentioned the corporate could give fairness within the firm in change for rights. Benchimol is aiming for the app can launch within the U.S. and Canada by subsequent yr, though he mentioned that relies on enhancing the product, securing rights and elevating cash from buyers. He is hoping the individuals he meets on the Techstars accelerator can present insights into the corporate and doubtlessly have curiosity in investing within the firm.

“(The connections) are gonna last for a long time,” Benchimol mentioned. “You may not need them or what they’re doing right now, because maybe there’s not a good fit or you’re just too early, but maybe a year from now or five years from now, you can reach back and maybe they could help you in the future.”

He added: “You will never get to do this kind of thing. Nobody has that big of a network individually if you’re just starting out. Techstars definitely does a great job of getting you in front of that person that makes the decisions at where they work.”

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