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Team Sports Concepts Among 10 Finalists Selected to Compete at SFIA Start-Up Challenge

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Ten finalists, including a couple that offer innovative ideas for team sports, have been selected by the Sports & Fitness Industry Association (SFIA) selection committee to present their start-up at the 2021 SFIA Start-Up Challenge. Over the years, this event has showcased the most competitive, innovative businesses in sports and fitness. To date, previous finalists have raised over $150 million in funding.

All finalists will present a five-minute pitch video, created in partnership with Spark Inc., to an elite cohort of judges that will be evaluating each company in terms of relevancy, creativity and potential. The contestants are competing for an extensive grand prize package that includes a cash prize, online brand protection security, both provided by OpSec Security, as well as a consultation day with the Under Armour Innovation Team, an exclusive media package provided by Spark Inc, and more. The Start-Up Challenge winner will be announced following the live virtual event on May 4.

“We have seen time and time again, sports bring people together,” says Tom Cove, SFIA president and CEO. “Now, more than ever, our country is focused on coming together again, as well as maintaining good physical health. Many of the innovative companies presenting this year highlight that message in their purpose, and we are proud to highlight next generation innovation that grows and enhances sports and fitness as we know it. The SFIA Start-Up Challenge has served as a major steppingstone to several new business in our industry.”

Two of the team-related finalists are:

  • Workforce Athletics: Providing turnkey solutions for intercompany sports, operating corporate sports leagues and tournaments that promote employee retention, inclusion, teamwork and wellness.
  • Realplay: Delivers video of every swing, pitch and catch that any player makes on a baseball or softball field to help players improve, share their highlights with anybody and hold on to memories.

The other finalists:

  • Bisu: A home health lab that provides personalized nutrition and lifestyle advice, using microfluidic technology to take urine and saliva testing from the stone age of conventional test strips, to an easy, accurate part of your self-care routine.
  • HitCheck: A quick cognitive traumatic brain injury (TBI) assessment using a mobile smartphone app for early detection through technology that compares your personal baseline to post-injury to provide unique data for medical experts to make critical brain health decisions.
  • Kayezen: Resistance bands and tubes that can deliver a wide variety of exercises, either indoors or outside.
  • Metric Mate: Cost-effective way to autonomously track, store, analyze and share your strength training workout data any time, from any place, allowing you to directly share with a professional trainer, strength coach or physical therapist.
  • Readout: A digital biomarker start-up providing a breath technology platform that allows development and commercialization of handheld diagnostic devices for consumers and clinical use cases. This non-invasive, unlimited and highly accurate measurements provide insights into human metabolism, specifically fat burn in our “repair” state after a metabolic switch.
  • Reflexion: A cognitive sports training company specialized in training visual and mental abilities in athletes, including reaction time, decision making speed under pressure, focus, moving object tracking, spacial awareness, peripheral vision, and more using a touchscreen connected fitness platform and cloud-based data analytics.
  • RooSense: Nonwoven fabric materials that collect and analyze data from sweat to provide insights to athletes that allows them to improve training and avoid injury. RooSense is developing integrated sensing materials using functionalized carbon nanotubes which are selective to sweat sodium, to provide real-time feedback about health and performance.
  • VAY: Software built to analyze human posture and motion in real-time to provide feedback on how exercises are performed, count correct/incorrect repetitions and provide progress tracking.