Gemini Sports Analytics Raises Oversubscribed Series Seed From Team Owners Led By Roger Ehrenberg To Grow The AI Platform For Sports
Moneyball In A Box just added fuel to their rocketship.
Miami, Florida based Gemini Sports Analytics have closed a $3.25M equity financing to bring their recently-launched Automated Machine Learning application to product-market-fit. Led by Roger Ehrenberg (who has a stake in MLB, MLS, and EPL teams and recently led Betr’s huge A Round), this oversubscribed Series Seed included investments from West Coast VC Social Leverage, which counts several team owners as LPs, former Celtics and Roma owner Jim Pallotta’s Raptor Group, and pro-rata participation from Florida Funders.
As part of the Artificial Intelligence revolution kicked off by ChatGPT, Gemini serve as the “Co-Pilot” for front-offices, providing an operating system in which data workers increase productivity through AI Cloud and Automated Machine Learning capabilities and executives can more easily interface with data insights. Gemini obsess over user experience and position themselves so that sports organizations do not all need to build the same software and data infrastructures, but enabling them to keep their full attention on subject-matter expertise and the most sophisticated data problems influencing Talent Identification, Talent Development & Roster Management, On-Field Tactics, and Player Performance. This hub-and-spoke model and AI Cloud platforms have been deeply integrated by companies such as Tesla and Fortune 500 industries like financial services for several years now. Gemini bring those lessons and technologies to the sports world through highly advantageous partnerships with Cloud and Data platform giants Snowflake, Databricks, and Data Robot. By providing pre-built sports data pipelines through industry partnerships which already include StatsBomb, SportRadar, Genius Sports, Sports Info Solutions, and SkillCorner, GSA saves customers countless hours building and maintaining data systems.
Despite having a very young product, GSA have made impressive early traction: Indianapolis Colts Game Operations Coordinator Charlie Gelman remarked, “As a data scientist, I am constantly trying to answer many questions using the most powerful tools I can find. Gemini’s tool help us progress from asking questions to gaining insights much easier and faster, with less manual work. We want more of our on-field decisions be data-driven, and this tool help makes that goal attainable.”, while longtime sports tech expert and current Parma Calcio Chief Performance & Analytics Officer Mathieu Lacome commented,“It wouldn’t surprise me if this is as common as GPS within three years. Most of the team are investing heavily on technologies and data, but they will need tools to processed it. Most of teams will never have more than a few data-facing staff, and this can increase productivity while providing more answers faster for Scouts, Sporting Directors, and other executives at even the most sophisticated organizations, as the product develops”. Finally, Texas A&M Associate Athletic Director Howard Gray declared, “Any organization wanting to be on the cutting edge should be investing in this technology. AI is changing the world and Gemini are right on the crest of that wave and evolving fast. To be able to provide our athletics programs with this kind of technology to aid in recruiting, tactics, physical development and more is a huge boost to our on-campus innovation”.
Founded by longtime elite sports scientist & biomechanist Jake Schuster, GSA have gone from strength to strength in the past 6 months, featuring at the MIT Sloan Sports Analytics Conference, NBA Summer League Tech Expo, and signing their first customers in the NFL and NCAA. They have also added significant firepower to a staff which already included NBA veteran Troy Carter and Catapult original Mathew Young. Ally Brabant was brought in as Head of Product after her first startup was acquired by Amazon and stints at Catapult and Second Spectrum, while Cody Swann joined as Principal Software Engineer after a long tenure in the same role at ESPN and having his startup acquired by Beckett Collectibles. Stephanie Modica joined full-time as Head of Customer Experience after spending the past three years building Visa’s crypto products, while Brandon Huggard, Amod Sahasrabudge and Hugo Rios-Neto bolster the data team after building experience at Michigan Football, US Soccer, Valencia, and Atletico Mineiro. Gemini are currently hiring a Principal Data Scientist, as well.
Whether building 4th Down decision-making models, forecasting roster management outcomes, or classifying pitching rotation strategies, it’s clear that users of Gemini’s application will shortcut the transition from go-karting to Formula One. Lead investor Roger Ehrenberg, who seeded data platform Unicorns including DataDog, Data Robot, and Komodo Health, has labeled Gemini, “The obvious next step in the sports data revolution. Jake and the team are today just scratching the surface of their value-add to front offices at global sports franchises. I’ve overseen this playbook in plenty of other industries and it’s time for sports to jump onboard.”
The AI Platform for Sports is here, and it’s got world-class strategic investors powering them.
Read the official announcement in Sports Business Journal here.