Paris-based Mojjo is a tech start-up company that developed tennismojjo, an online platform that caught the eye of the French Tennis Federation (FFT). Developed by three university friends, CEO EMMANUEL WITVOET, CTO CHARLES CHEVALIER and COO JULIEN VERNAY, Mojjo is changing how players and tournaments review performances. Via a single court-side camera, Mojjo’s software analyzes play and delivers a match summary minutes after the final point. The program provides highlights by identifying key match moments as well as the most exciting shots based on crowd reactions. Mojjo and the FFT partnered to make the tennismojjo available at professional tournaments, most notably the 2017 Roland Garros. SBD Global spoke with Witvoet about the company's deal with the FFT and plans for the future.
On how Mojjo got started ...
EMMANUEL WITVOET: Mojjo sparked from a terrible tennis match where I lost against my brothers making so many mistakes I couldn't count them. GoPros were going mainstream, and I asked Charles if he thought it was possible to analyze a match with only one camera. Two years later, Charles had built the algorithm, Julien sourced the hardware and I designed the website.
On how Mojjo works ...
WITVOET: By positioning a camera in the axis of the net, we are able to fully understand the match thanks to our proprietary algorithms. Court lines, player movements, shot type and rebounds are automatically identified, and a timeline of the events of the match is created. With all this data, we can then create condensed versions of matches or a full match without downtime, which makes up almost 70% of a pro match. Also, there are automated highlights of on-demand length. The algorithm chooses points that make up the story and spectacular points based on the gathered data (winners, distance ran, net points, crowd noise, etc.). All the content is created on the fly by our video player. The broadcaster integrates it in on its platform, puts the full match as was aired on TV, and Mojjo does the rest. (An example of a match summary can be found
here.)
On installation costs for tournaments and clubs ...
WITVOET: For clubs, hardware costs range from $3,000 to $5,500 depending on the version (outdoor or indoor). A license fee per court per year costs from $200 per-month, per-court to $400 depending on the package. For tournaments, we won't disclose this yet.
On how the FFT deal was done ...
WITVOET: It started right after after integrating the first cohort of LeTremplin, the Paris sports-dedicated incubator. French public broadcaster FranceTelevision reached out to ask us if we could imagine a new service for TV content considering all the data we were able to collect easily. We did a first prototype of the Mojjo ProTour experience with FTV in 2015. Bulding on that success, we directly dealt with Roland Garros to analyze all matches on central court in 2016.
On plans to expand Mojjo beyond France ...
WITVOET: We have just signed a deal with the Justine Henin academy in Belgium, and soon to come other large academies in Europe. Pros train there, so we're eager to see how our technology can help them get better. For the club product, it just started with Belgium, and we will be relying on tennis distributors to go global. This is possible because our system is so easy to ship and install, like Ikea furniture, except it's packed with breakthrough innovations. For ProTour, we will go international right after Roland Garros 2017.
On Mojjo's impact on the tennis world ...
WITVOET: Tennis is facing very harsh competition from other sports, and we think that by making the experience of tennis more fun and social, players will want to push their limits. We plan on releasing "gamified" add-ons so as to encourage players to go back on the court, train and play matches. The possibilities with data is endless, and we think this is going to create crazy new experiences around this great sport. We will go to other sports, but we can't say more.
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