SIQ Basketball, a Helsinki-based startup behind the development of a smart basketball approved by the International Basketball Federation (Fiba), has raised $3 million in additional seed funding to accelerate its goal of delivering personalized analytics to every player worldwide. The funding round was led by Chicago-based venture capital firm KB Partners and joined by Tera Ventures in Estonia. The startup applies information technology in team sports by doing advanced analysis of an event in real-time using various sources like statistics, scoreboard, player movements and combining that into the event footage and beyond. The new funding will be used to expand SIQ’s reach and further develop its feature set, including online leaderboards and social games.
Founded by former Finnish professional Harri Hohteri, SIQ’s smart basketball is designed to improve players’ performance by providing personalized analytics. The basketball has the same size, shape, bounce, weight, and functionality as a standard basketball but also tracks 192 different metrics per shot, including consistency, quickness, and swish percentage. The ball automatically sends data to a paired smartphone application, and after 500 shots, the ball learns each player’s individual fingerprints. The application is a subscription-based service, and the ball is available in men’s, women’s, indoor, and outdoor variants.
“Today, access to analytics is limited in youth and amateur sports – especially basketball. SIQ sees a world where every player has performance data at their fingertips,” said Erik Anderson, chief executive SIQ Basketball. “We look forward to leveraging this investment for marked expansion and continued feature development to the SIQ experience.”
“Data and analytics have been transformative in sports,” said Steve Ahern, partner at KB Partners. “By providing athletes with real-time feedback on their performance through data previously unavailable, SIQ is transforming the way in which players approach the game, allowing them to accurately measure performance and further develop their skill set.”
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