Meet Francisco Baptista, CEO and Founder at Accessible AI Sports Platform: TeamSportz

TeamSportz is an accessible AI sports platform to help players and coaches reach their full potential. The app uses AI to analyse, measure and generate accurate performance data for the players during drills and exercises. The coaches use the web platform to understand, support and help their players’ development.

 

 
Coming up with a name is tricky because everyone wants the name to capture some abstract concept in one word. I knew for sure that I needed a name that people would not forget, so I stayed away from the slightly misspelled company names, and I wanted a descriptive name that helped people understand what we are about.

So TeamSportz dot Pro was born (with a Z just because the S domain long gone) and Pro because it was about giving elite/professional sports technology to everyone. Since then, we call it TeamSportz for short.
 

 

How did you come up with the idea for the company?

 
I have played basketball since I can remember and as a software engineer I couldn’t understand why my own basketball team was so underserved with technology to help us improve as players as a team. Sure, there are lots of free apps out there but they often fall short because they can’t support a sports team on their basic needs: organisation, training and how to win games. Alternatively, you need to spend a lot of money in order to access the technology that can help your team. The more I looked into it, the more I realised that this is a problem most grassroots and semi-pro sports teams have. I felt compelled to solve them.

TeamSportz is unique because the team behind it really believes in its vision, and also our sports tracking technology is unmatched. We are proud to be working with every type of club from smaller teams to large academies, as democratising the access to sports technology requires bringing everyone onboard.
 

How has the company evolved over the last couple of years?

 
We started with a proof of concept that was being used by a couple of teams in Manchester and once we got accepted to Sports Tech Hub Accelerator and signed a paid partnership with London Sports, things changed radically. Today we have more than 2,000 players using our platform.

We have a solution that enables clubs to run their teams more efficiently and have access to elite performance stats that our AI provides. We have also raised funding from investors in the UK and the US which accelerated TeamSportz’s entry to market.
 

What can we hope to see from TeamSportz in the future?

 
In the immediate future you will see TeamSportz being the default sports platform used by the vast majority of UK sports teams and clubs with established partnerships with sports governing bodies and universities. We are also entering the US market starting with 7on7 American football championships that will also open the door to college scouting revenue.

In the long term, TeamSportz will be everyone’s sports passport. You will start in TeamSportz at your school and your sports data passport will follow you until you become a professional athlete.