Rafael Nadal’s tennis academy has announced three winning startups from a competition it held to uncover and support sports technology companies. The competition, supported by Movistar and Telefonica’s “Open Future” initiative announced the winners as iAltitude, Vilynx and Spinn Technologies.
The event was held at the Rafa Nadal Academy, with “The King Of Clay” in attendance too in which the three winners gave him full demonstrations of their solutions. While two of the startups, Vilynx and Spinn Technologies, will be supported by Movistar and Telefonica, the third — iAltitude — is also receiving $244,000 in investment.
iAltitude simulates altitude training indoors for elite and professional athletes. It has released two physical units which perform this simulation, which is supported by software which tracks performance. It has a range of other products, varying in price, including a custom built altitude center for professional organizations. It is also part of the Global Sports Innovation Center (GSIC), which was founded by Microsoft in 2015.
Vilynx applies machine learning to online video content in order to better process more than 10,000 online videos a day to reveal hidden tennis analytics. Using what the founders call a “weakly-supervised architecture” it tries to create better tagging to better contextualize video content. The idea is that using such technology will uncover patterns that can then be applied to prevent injuries in elite athletes, with the potential to also spot above average sporting ability in children.
Meanwhile, Spinn Technologies is an app-based tennis analytical technology. It creates a “smart court” in which the app, available on Android and iOS, can record and measure performance relating to serve, distance ran and other important in-game data.
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In total more than 160 companies entered the competition, with nearly half coming from Spain, followed by the remaining entrants coming from Latin America, including Colombia, Peru, Brazil and Venezuela. All the entrants offered technology which was focused on sporting issues.
The Academy itself is based in his hometown of Mallorca in Spain’s Balearic Islands and is a facility which develops tennis players between the ages of 11-18.
Movistar, which sponsors the Academy is a brand under the Telefonica umbrella, and Nadal was appointed as an official brand ambassador by parent brand Telefonica in 2014. Telefónica’s “Open Future” initiative seeks to connect startups with investors and also assist in their development. To date, it has invested in 750 businesses worth $495 million.
“Open innovation is the best way to take the best ideas and the most disruptive proposals to any sector, company or human discipline, and transform them,” Ana Segurado, global director of Telefónica Open Future, said in a statement.
In the same statement, Nadal was quoted as saying that the competition has been “a real education” in seeking out companies to help his Academy improve.
Nadal most recently won his 10th French Open and is slated to play in the upcoming Wimbledon Grand Slam at the start of July, where he is attempting to win the tournament for the third time.