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Sports tech outfit Keemotion has secured $3.6M in Series A financing, with the round supported by several groups and individuals, including Dodgers' ownership, R/GA Ventures and former NBA Commissioner David Stern. Keemotion's technology allows for organizations to have autonomous live production of sporting events. The investment will allow the company to grow its offerings, provide more solutions, expand into other sports and assist with staffing. Keemotion CEO Milton Lee said, “The evolution and direction of this technology is going to take many different iterations and transformations, so for that to happen, we have to continue to hire great engineering talent.” He added, “The main thing that we’re focusing on is the development and improvement of the technology in multiple ways and the development into other sports verticals and eventually even outside of sports verticals.” Other Keemotion investors include 76ers and Devils co-owner David Blitzer, DC United Managing General Partner Jason Levien, former Onexim Sports & Entertainment President Irina Pavlova, NBA free agent Mike Dunleavy Jr., Evolution Media Capital in association with CAA, Machete Group and Blue Equity.
MORE FUNDS COMING? Although this is Keemotion’s first official financing, they did have a friends and family investment round. The company did not disclose the amount for that round, but did say it was less than the Series A financing. As far as further financing is concerned, Lee said, “We’re in an envious position in that we’re close to breaking even and so it gives us a lot of flexibility as to what are next step is going to be as far as fundraising. Right now, we’re talking with a number of potential strategic partners that are either in the sports related space, video production related space or automated technology related space. We’re open to different paths and are fielding a lot of conversations where there may be a mutual beneficial relationship."
LOOKING AHEAD: Keemotion currently produces basketball, volleyball, futsal (indoor soccer) and handball. They also produce hockey, which is in the developmental stage. Keemotion has a partnership with the Sabres and the team’s HarborCenter facility to aid in this process. Seven NBA teams and 15 NCAA teams are also using Keemotion. “We will eventually do every sport,” said Lee. “Hockey is a great example of how we’re going to get to evolve in other sports. We’re partnering with some technology companies that are on the cutting edge of all these exciting areas that will push all sorts of sports technologies in a lot of different directions.” Keemotion also has a partnership with Fox Sports that allows the company to test different broadcasts across the net's platforms. Lee: "Fox particularly has been forward thinking and leading on the idea of automated production. We’re lucky to have them as a partner.” In the future, Keemotion is looking at areas such as artificial intelligence to help improve the way the company can produce sporting events. Lee said, "We have a lot of things in our technology roadmap that we’re extremely excited about including the marrying of artificial intelligence and deep learning into all of our algorithms. This will create a huge menu of solutions that we’re going to be able to provide in an automated fashion.”
