Fan data management platform Pico has announced a $3 million investment round led by German VC firm RSBG Ventures and Hong Kong-based investment firm Silverhorn Group. Pico’s AI-powered platform generates targeted games and survey questions for fans to answer to help sports teams learn more about their fans.
The questions are asked through team-owned digital channels such as Facebook Messenger or direct messages on Twitter. Teams can integrate data collected by Pico into their own database systems in order to build fan profiles that can help create personalized fan experiences.
"During the last year and throughout the COVID-19 crisis, in particular, our team was able to really show how urgent is the need we are solving in the sports and entertainment market, and rapidly grow our business," Asaf Nevo, Pico's CEO, said in a press release.
Pico works with more than 30 sports teams including the NBA’s Los Angeles Clippers and Philadelphia 76ers, the NHL’s St. Louis Blues and New Jersey Devils, German soccer club Borussia Dortmund, and Winnipeg Blue Bombers of the CFL. The company was founded in Israel and has since established offices in Europe and the U.S.
“Teams are so reliant on what’s happening on game day and the pipeline of transactional data,” Nevo says. “Once this has been completely shut down, it provided a big spotlight on what we’re saying all the time … We can really help teams during these times,” Nevo told SportTechie’s Joe Lemire in April.
