US connected sports company Slinger (OTCQB: SLBG) has announced that it has acquired Israeli AI sports technology company PlaySight Interactive for $82 million in shares.
PlaySight delivers pro-level video technology to hundreds of thousands of athletes, coaches, teams and fans in over 30 sports, including tennis, baseball, soccer and basketball. The company's platform is used daily for automated production live streaming, multi-angle video recording, performance analysis, VAR, content monetization and much more. PlaySight is connected throughout the NBA, MLB, NHL and the NCAA.
Slinger provides innovative, game improvement technologies and equipment across tennis and other ball sports.
Based in Tel Aviv, PlaySight was founded in 2010 by CEO Chen Shachar, CTO Evgeni Khazanov and Yoram Bentzur.
Shachar said, "It has been an amazing journey with a great team, and I believe that Slinger is the right company to take our technology platform to new heights in tennis and our other key sports. We share many commonalities from the launch in tennis to the focus on consumer and sports connectivity. Mike and his team have very bold aspirations to build a leading global brand powered by AI technology, and we are thrilled to join their team and add our capabilities and experience. I believe Slinger is very well positioned to further commercialize PlaySight’s technology and drive even more meaningful value for athletes, coaches, teams, fans and the entire sports market."
Slinger CEO Mike Ballardie said, "PlaySight pioneered the deployment of AI video technology and analysis in tennis and other major sports and is now amongst the largest technology providers in the market.Our goal is to create a full suite of ‘Watch, Play and Learn’ solutions, the three largest commercial activities in every sport. To accomplish this, we are building a 360-degree platform of products and services to meet the needs of our tennis consumers today, and for other major sports over the next few years."
PlaySight's investors include Billie Jean King, Novak Djokovic, Chris Evert, Pete Sampras, Darren Cahill, Ana Ivanovic, Tommy Haas, and Paul Annacone as well as Verizon Ventures, Greg Norman’s Great White Shark Opportunity Fund, Unbound Ventures, SoftBank Ventures Asia, NAVER, OurCrowd, and Tennis Partners.
Published by Globes, Israel business news - en.globes.co.il - on October 12, 2021
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