Sportstech in Motion (2021)

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Sportstech in Motion

06-09

18-20

26-27

Sportstech Is Booming Globally; Does Denmark Already Have a Powered by TechSavvy Secret Advantage?

Performance-enhancing Gear: Materials, Equipment, and Technology Push the Limits of Top Athletes

Growth is Just Getting Started: Investors Pour Billions into the 1 Sportstech Industry

KLUBMODUL HOLDER 100% STYR PÅ DINE MEDLEMMER Landets førende og foretrukne løsning Klubmodul ønsker at favne bredt, ramme præcist og inddrage flest mulige aspekter.

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Klubmodul ApS blev stiftet i 2008 og er i dag landets førende og foretrukne løsning blandt tusindvis af klubber, foreninger og organisationer.

Klubmodul leverer et online administrations- og medlemssystem, der indeholder en komplet suite af softwareløsninger – alle designet og udviklet til foreninger.

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Klubmodul samler alle jeres systemer i ét!

Kommunikationen med medlemmer har aldrig været nemmere!

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About: Sportstech in Motion Individual sports without any affiliation to clubs or organizations are on the rice. So is our expectation of what the club is supposed to offer its members. And we don’t want the connection to our local hero-athletes to start and stop at the entrance to the stadium.

The way we play, organize, experience and consume sports is going through a radical change - and technology is a significant part of that.

In this magazine, we’re focusing on the organizations, startups and clubs that drive digital change.

Who harvests the power of technology to increase performance and experience, enhance the affiliation with the local club and strengthen the community around our favourite sports.

Enjoy!

Partners We would like to thank the following partners, sponsors and advertisers for making “Sportstech 2021” possible:

Innovation Lab

“Sportstech 2021 - Sportstech in Motion” is produced by TechSavvy Media.

Editor in Chief: Sebastian Kjær Journalists: Anna Bernsen Jakobsen, Erik Lillelund, Camilla Bevensee and Sebastian Kjær.

Layout: Vratislav Pecka Published by TechSavvy Media.

Contact: sales@techsavvy.media

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Table of content 05 06-09

Sportstech Is Booming Globally: Does Denmark Already Have a Secret Advantage?

Danish sportstech already has several successful startups leading the way as well as sports federations betting on technology and athletes ready to use it. All of this has happened without a unified, focused bet on the industry – but that might soon be changing.

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Players 1st Wants to Bring Sporting Clubs into the Future

12-14

Community-oriented App Supports a Fast-Growing Solo Sport The sports tracking app Mountainbike United gathers the mountain biking community on a single platform. The app makes setting out flexible and accessible, and allows mountain bikers to easily organize across age and skill levels.

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“We Have Changed The Economy 140 per cent for These Clubs”

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Turf Tank: From Robot Skepticism to Innovative Mega Printer

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Performance-enhancing Gear: Materials, Equipment, and Technology Push the Limits of Top Athletes There is a technological arms race in the world of sports, pushing the last marginals of performance out of the world’s top athletes. Materials, equipment, and technology have become deciding factors in bringing the medals home, says Team Danmark’s performance engineer – because of course they have one.

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6 Megatrends Shaping the Future of Sports

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KMD Wants to Improve Sports with Data

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Movesense: Movement Measurements Are a Paradigm Shift in Sports Tracking

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The Confederation of Danish Industry Sees Sports Technology as a Danish Position of Strength: “We’re Capable of Something Special”

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Danske Bank Is a Strategic Financial Partner for Growing Companies Like Veo

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Investors Pour Billions into the Sportstech Industry Despite the COVID-19 pandemic, sportstech is a rapidly advancing industry. Its success may be owed to us all having become more dataoriented and more digital, say experts, who believe the industry has just started growing.

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InchByInch Wants to Help Children And Youths Reach Their Full Potential – as Soccer Players and as People

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Sportstechs to Watch

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Danish Sportstech Going for International Top Class While Strengthening Sports Associations

The Sports of the Future Mix Tech and Movement.

And the Ambition Is to Be as Big as Counter-Strike Sportstech companies EVOtag and Jabii have each created a game combining the technical aspects of gaming with some real-life sweat.

The next step is building communities and organising tournaments, for the ambitions are not small: These games have the potential to be as big as Counter-Strike.

SportsTech in Motion 2021

Danish Sportstech Going for International Top Class While Strengthening Sports Associations Written by Charlotte Bach Thomassen, chairman in DGI, and Hans Natorp, chairman in DIF

D Charlotte Bach Thomassen Chairman in DGI

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Danish sportstech is booming. The number of Danish sportstech-companies has been increasing steadily over the past years and they are evolving fast in a close and giving collaboration between the business community and the sports federations.

Among other things, this is the result of a focused effort by DIF Innovation Lab and DGI Impact, who work dedicated to helping entrepreneurs and startups within sports technology get off the ramp with their new ideas.

The trend is great and important. Innovative sportstech solutions are quickly gaining ground in the global market, which has created a gigantic sports industry with almost limitless growth potential.

The global market for sportstech reached 18 billion dollars in 2021 despite the covid pandemic, according to the international analytics agency ‘Research and Markets’. And the valuation is expected to surpass 40 billion dollars by 2026.

The numbers are mindblowing and an indicator of a development that is only going in one direction.

At DIF and DGI, we see a huge potential in sportstech as a Danish position

of strength. Sports are highly organized in Denmark and we are one of the most sports active countries with a high degree of participation in clubs. At the same time, we’re in front when it comes to Danish design.

That’s a strong cocktail. A cocktail we both can and should translate into innovative technology that adds value to each individual athlete as well as sports associations and the companies behind the solutions.

A wide range of Danish tech companies has already been pushed in the right direction with coaching, user tests and access to the Danish sports associations as well as the international export market. We believe that Danish sports shall play a role in shaping sportstech solutions of the future, as both the sport and businesses benefit from a strong collaboration - and because it has the potential to motivate more people to live an active life.

For that reason, DIF and DGI is also a part of this year’s TechBBQ, where sportstech has a designated area for the first time ever. A clear sign of the boom currently happening in Danish sportstech.

Hans Natorp Chairman in DIF

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Sportstech Is Booming Globally Does Denmark Already Have a Secret Advantage?

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SportsTech in Motion 2021

Danish sportstech already has several successful startups leading the way as well as sports federations betting on technology and athletes ready to use it.

All of this has happened without a unified, focused bet on the industry – but that might soon be changing.

Written by Sebastian Kjær

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sing state-of-the-art radar and data technology, Trackman is helping the stars of golf and baseball improve. Additionally, they have made three-digit million profits in recent years. The running app Endomondo secured 25 million users before it was sold for a quarter billion kroner - about 33,5 million euros. And with a recent investment of 150 million kroner (about 20 million euros), the company VEO is, with its intelligent camera, well on its way to becoming a worldwide leader in its field.

Beside their successes, the three Danish companies have another thing in common: they combine sports and technology. And they are far from the only guiding lights in the emerging industry in Denmark. That does not mean, however, that they all come from the exact same ecosystem.

Despite the industry’s strong position, there is still no unified initiative or association for sportstech in Denmark, as is the case with robotics and fintech, for instance. But that may be changing.

DIF Innovation Lab was launched in 2017 to unite companies, startups, sports associations, athletes, and universities around sports technology. The enterprise believes that it is a benefit to both companies and sports life if cooperation can be achieved across stakeholders.

“Our vision is to make Denmark the Nordic capital of sportstech. And we fully believe in its growth potential. We have a position of strength that just needs to be utilized,” says Anne Mette Trier, Head of DIF Innovation Lab.

DIF Innovation Lab gives startups the option of validating their sportstech concepts with real users. DIF helps companies connect with various sports associations, which can then provide access to association members, as well as coaches and volunteers. The goal is to give Danish companies a larger share of the international sports technology market - here with an export delegation to ISPO in München.

An Industry Growing Explosively The sportstech industry is not only on the move in Denmark. Companies are also seeing the potential of mixing sports and technology globally as well.The latest numbers from SportsTechX, which specializes in data and analytics in the industry, shows that in the first half of 2021, more than 5 billion dollars were invested in sportstech startups globally.

That is more than what was invested in total each year in the previous five consecutive years. At the same time, rounds of mega-investment have become increasingly common; in 2021, there has already been 14 investments in startups exceeding 100 millions dollars. For comparison, 2020 saw 10 rounds of that size overall.

Anne Mette Trier Head of DIF Innovation Lab

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Global investments into sportstech (USD) 5.03 billion

4.9 billion

3.22 billion

3.44 billion

2.18 billion

2017

2018

2019

2020

2021 (first six months)

Source: SportsTechX

Sports Lab Copenhagen was started a year and a half ago as a meeting ground for sports entrepreneurs. At the same time, their aim is to inspire the next wave of innovation and tech entrepreneurs in sports by organising joint activities and initiatives with the University of Southern Denmark (such as workshops, co-creation projects, and collaboration models). This will form part of the seamless entrepreneurial pathway from student-entrepreneurs to international scale-ups.

That is why this is the perfect time to start taking interest in sportstech, says Carsten Couchouron, who has a long career in various sports associations, agencies, and events behind him. He started in sportstech a year and a half ago with Sports Lab Copenhagen, where he is applying 25 years of experience from the sports industry to help improve commercial opportunities in sportstech, as well as drawing on his international network to give Danish startups a chance

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of connection with the rest of the world.

“Things have happened very quickly over the past 3-5 years. We already have some impressive success stories in Denmark, and I see no reason Denmark and the Nordics shouldn’t be global frontrunners. With strong companies and organisations, we have many reasons to regard our position as incredibly advantageous,” says Couchouron.

With over 200 Danish startups working with sports innovation in various

ways, he sees a strong base with potential for becoming the next beacon of sportstech. And combined with a range of strong actors (including the Sports Confederation of Denmark, DGI, the University of Southern Denmark, SportsHub Denmark, and of course Sports Lab Copenhagen itself) also seeing the potential of the industry, a robust ecosystem is already in place. The various parties just needs to be tied even closer together.

Outthink, Not Outspend Danish IT firm KMD started its foray into sportstech in 2017. This was when Frans Hammer was hired as chief consultant on the area, having been a handball coach for several league teams, as well as for the Italian national team. And now that the first years of the enterprise have passed, he sees great new opportunities for businesses, which also motivates innovation for the rest of the company.

“This might turn into something of a NASA-project for us. In sports, everything is gambled on being just that one-and-ahalf percent better than the competitor.

While it might not be directly transferable to the municipalities, we also work with, it might create some technological perks that can be used elsewhere in the company,” says Hammer, who today is Advisory Director at KMD. But for Hammer, it is not only the business of sportstech that is of interest.

He is also a part of the management of the Danish Olympic Commission and is newly elected Vice Chairman of the Sports Confederation of Denmark, where sports technology is also one of his key interests. He believes that, from a sports-oriented perspective too, Denmark has much to gain by implementing technology this way.

“We need to think about digitalisation in elite, wide, and social terms, and how we can innovate in sports with technology. I would argue that Endomondo has done more to combat inactivity than most Danish sports associations have.

And the elite will have much better ground in international competition if we open our doors to data and technology,” he says.

“When a small nation like us has ambitions of Olympic medals, or of competing

SportsTech in Motion 2021

in the best football leagues, it is a given that we cannot challenge our opponents economically. For instance, the Italian national football team has more employees than the entirety of the Danish Football Association,” says Hammer.

We nevertheless win more Olympic medals than our population size suggests, and FC Midtjylland has managed to qualify for Champions League as the smallest club in the league’s history. Hammer believes this is a sign of our tradition for working smarter than others - and technology is the strongest weapon in that arsenal.

“FC Midtjylland is a fantastic example.

They have used technology and data to figure out their own secret advantage. And subsequently, they chosen to fight where they had the greatest shot at winning. In popular terms, it is not about outspending the other party, because we simply don’t have that edge.

Instead, we need to outthink them - and technology may be the answer to that,” says Hammer.

Gather the Building Blocks The first commercial beacons in sportstech are already shining bright, and the sports world is ready to embrace these new solutions.

DGI, the federation for sports and gymnastics, has also since 2018 been involved through ‘DIG Impact’. And even though the larger sports organisations - both the Sports Confederation of Denmark and DGI - have ambitions more directed towards sports than towards entrepreneurs, Jacob Breddam, who manages DGI Impact, sees nothing mutually exclusive about the two areas.

Quite the contrary - he believes that all the conditions for creating a successful enterprise for both sports and commerce are in place. All that’s needed is a stronger joint effort.

“That is our goal with DGI Impact: gathering all of us in a vertical ecosystem, where everyone working with sports innovation are gathered, and where we can agree on who will be doing what, so we don’t have to re-invent the same wheel. The work with other actors has started as well, and the goal is to give sports innovation in Denmark a strong ecosystem with a one-stop-

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Frans Hammer has previously coached several handball teams - inclluding the Italian national team. Today he is both Advisory Director at KMD, a part of the management of the Danish Olympic Commission and newly elected Vice Chairman of the Sports Confederation of Denmark with sports technology as one of his key interests.

Since 2018, DGI Impact has been involved in the industry by annually selecting 4 to 8 startups to receive a total investment of two million kroner (€270.000).

shop,” says Breddam.

He would rather see a joint effort to make Denmark the field leader worldwide rather than many efforts to determine who will be field leader in Denmark only.

“If we want to be the sportstech hub of the Nordic region, we need to cooperate

across the board. We already have some experiences from various actors that we can build upon, and we are now applying them in the preliminary work to find structure and the right ways of cooperating. Because this will only succeed if we all join up and agree on what needs to be done,” says Breddam.

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Sponsored: This article is made in cooperation with Players 1st

Players 1st Wants to Bring Sporting Clubs into the Future Players 1st is helping clubs win back their members by using hard data based on the actual wishes of sports participants.

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orten Bisgaard and Jacob Buksted Poulsen have helped some of Denmark’s largest companies sort out their data and translate it to workable insights for improving their businesses. They also have a passion for golf. And in 2012, they decided to merge skills and passion with the company Players 1st, whose goal is to help golf clubs optimize their members’ experiences.

Since then, it has become much more than a passion project.

“Our main purpose is to go in and analyse the gaps between what the club offers and what its members want. And then we work on closing those gaps. We started in Danish golfing, and like ripples in the water, we spread to the other Scandinavian countries, and then on to Europe and the US,” says Bisgaard, CEO and co-found of Players 1st.

The concept is really quite simple. The company has specialized in compiling questionnaires for club members, which the company then processes effectively and translates to intelligent reporting in a dashboard, which the club can then act on: Does the playing area need better maintenance? Is there a lack of social

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events? And how do the club’s sales compare to others in its field?

It may have started with golf, where Players 1st are the de facto leaders in worldwide, but over the last years, the company has been expanding its model across sporting disciplines.

Rising Wide Players 1st started in the more commercial side of sports disciplines; with big investments into their facilities, golf clubs have a natural mindset toward running a business. But even though a badminton club is not based on the same economic incentives, it needs to be able to understand its members if it wants to keep them.

“Our product resonates with the current tendency and trend of focusing on recruiting and retaining. That is what we support - and we can document it in writing instead of just by gut feeling,” says Bisgaard.

This foray into the world of sporting clubs in a wider sense has accelerated through deals with associations like the Sports Confederation of Denmark, the Danish Gymnastics and Sports Association, and the Danish Golfing Union, all of

whom have since implement the questionnaires from Players 1st in more than 500 clubs across disciplines. And according to Bisgaard, this is only the beginning.

“If the sport is to evolve, we need to know the needs and expectations of consumers and club members, both for the club and the discipline - and that includes everything from community activities to practice. And in that area, we are seeing that demands are only getting bigger and bigger,” he says.

The clubs are seeing a general tendency of moving away from set practice hours and towards more “on demand” services. And the corona shutdown has accelerated this development.

“The shutdown pushed many athletes to newer, more independent sports activities, and what can the classic sports and disciplines do as a reaction to that?

It is obvious that they need a way in if they want their old customers back. But what does that require of their product, compared to what they used to offer?

Are there new demands, or have expectations changed? That is what makes our product incredibly relevant right now, as we measure both loyalty and experience,” says Bisgaard.

SportsTech in Motion 2021

The Pulse of Sports The golf solution was rolled out through the Danish Golf Union. Partnerships related to other disciplines were subsequently initiated with (among others) the Danish Handball Federation, the Danish Gymnastics and Sports Association, and the Sports Confederation of Denmark. More recently, the company has added organisations like the English tennis association and the Norwegian swimmer’s association to its list of international partners.

“Making deals like that takes a bit more time, because of the political side of these organisations, but when we’re in, we’re in firmly,” says Bisgaard.

Players 1st’s implementation strategy has an advantage businesswise, as they get access to many clubs in one deal. And because of this strategy’s wide embrace, the company can also pursue their mission of giving something back to sports and help the various associations and clubs develop and evolve.

“We have a finger on the pulse of sports, as we are constantly measuring what is happening out in the clubs: What is the pulse of swimming, what is the pulse of handball? And within

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handball, who is good at retaining and engaging club members, and who aren’t? And from there, we work with the associations to send a team of consultants and raise the bottom line - and in that way, we raise up all of Danish sports life,” says Bisgaard.

This kind of insight relies on having the necessary information mass to benchmark across clubs and even across countries. And Players 1st have that mass, allowing them to spot shared trends affecting the market in real-time, and thereby help sports develop in a positive direction.

“Right now, our challenge is that we have so much data, and we need to open up even more data - for the benefit of sports. Therefore, we are working on partnerships with universities and other actors that can help us identify the good stories and the best cases and get them out in the world. In that sense, we have something of an open-source mentality, and we want to use that to give something back to sports,” says Bisgaard.

Clubs Are Businesses Too While individual-focused sports like running and mountain biking have

wind in their sails, more traditional association sports like handball and football are - with a few exceptions - struggling to attract new players. And while the volunteer factor is one of the major advantages of club sports, then maybe they also need a commercial incentive if the clubs are to resurge.

“It is very interesting to see how the American clubs take a far more commercial angle. We try to bring that up in our dialogues with Danish clubs, because they need to change their mindset and start seeing their members as customers. Members have increasingly disloyal mindsets, because they have access to so many other offers out there,” says Bisgaard.

That does not mean that the local gymnastics association needs to think strictly in terms of profit. But the social macro-trends of flexibility and raised expectations of experiences have hit the clubs hard, and the clubs can benefit from taking some lessons from the business world.

“There are many interesting dialogues about sports facilities and what to do with them. But the question is just as much about the clubs needing to change their membership model to increase flexibility and target new audiences - or maybe retaining those who are leaving, through a different type of membership,” says Bisgaard.

Players 1st •

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Players 1st is the leading company providing solution for measurement of members’ experiences. The company’s digital questionnaires and online result-displaying dashboard is designed to help sports clubs retain and recruit members, coaches, and volunteers.

The company works closely with several Danish associations including the Sports Confederation of Denmark, the Danish Football Association, the Danish Gymnastics and Sports Association, and the Danish Swimming Federation.

Using intelligent reporting, Players 1st makes it easy for clubs to stay informed on what members want.

And because the solution is digital, clubs can get started for as little as 1,500 kroner (200 euro/170 British pounds) annually.

Read more on www.players1st.dk

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Community-oriented App Supports a FastGrowing Solo Sport The sports tracking app Mountainbike United gathers the mountain biking community on a single platform. The app makes setting out flexible and accessible, and allows mountain bikers to easily organize across age and skill levels.

Written by Camilla Bevensee, Nordic SportsLab

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T

wo right-angled triangles make a large ‘M’ against a neon green background and ensure that you can always locate your stalwart mountain biking companion in the confusion of apps on your home screen. You press the icon and soon you have your feed of tracks, groups, and news read to scroll at the touch of your thumb.

You press ‘Go’ and power on at the first leg of a 24-kilometre-long mountain bike route tagged with ‘tough inclines’ and ‘muddy turns’. You are a mountain biking enthusiast, and like thousands of other such enthusiasts, you have Mountainbike United at your side during your weekly sessions with your sport.

Founder Morten Kamp Schubert has no doubt about the goal: to become the leading service for the mountain biking sport worldwide. The tech entrepreneur and his team are on the right track after the relaunch at the beginning of the year.

The new version emphasises community, and aside from providing guidance for

routes, the app has many features meant to embrace the community so important for the mountain biking experience.

“We want to be the app mountain bikers go to not only when biking, but also when they are not biking, and when they are just thinking about it,” Schubert says.

Technology Brings More Out in the Woods The relaunch of the app as a unified universe for mountain biking is supported by the Danish Gymnastics and Sports Association’s innovation project for entrepreneurs, DGI Impact, which over the last three years has selected a handful of startups with potential for developing and proliferating sports across Denmark and has supported them with up to half a million kroner (about 80.000 dollars).

“The app makes it possible to go out and try out the sport, and because it makes practice so flexible, it can be used as a recruitment tool to get more people into mountain biking,” explains Jakob Breddam, project manager at DIG Impact.

SportsTech in Motion 2021

He hopes that the app can support clubs established at multiple locations, and help retain people already active, since they can practice when it suits their schedule and can do it wherever they happen to have brought their bike.

Schubert from Mountainbike United agrees that the app needs to support the traditional clubs and their way of organising. More features aimed at clubs to ease the burdens of managing members and offering coaching are underway for the app, but he emphasises the importance of the platform being able to support all types of mountain biking groups.

“Fundamentally we are interested in getting people involved in official clubs, but we would also like to unite people in other groups. Whether it’s a neighbourhood clique, friends, colleagues, business connections, or someone you have met on the app, we can do so much for them all, and we will continue to do so,” says the app developer, and continues: “There are many who don’t see it as a real sport, more as a form of exercise, a spare time interest, or a hobby. Hence only a very small portion of mountain bikers are members of a club.”

The increased accessibility and flexibility facilitated by the app is also more important for DGI’s Breddam than it is to get mountain bikers involved in clubs as a first priority.

“Mountainbike United is without a doubt helping make the mountain bike field more flexible and accessible for a lot of people. The app facilitates users taking their bike by car somewhere new and explore a new route on the way to a family event, or finding and meeting others who brought the bike to their summer home, and that is important if the sport is to grow, so more people will join clubs down the line,” Breddam explains.

Gamification Increases the Fun Breddam also emphasises that gamification has started to become a part of the app, an important part of the potential he believes the project has for getting more people outside and participating in sports.

“There is a colour-coded map giving an overview of which tracks you’ve biked on, and of course the goal is to colour in

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Morten Kamp Schubert (front right) has always mountain biked, and he especially appreciates the social aspect of the sport.

Photo: Lasse Martinussen

Morten Kamp Schubert is not shy about sharing his ’Ride the World’ map of Denmark, where large parts have been coloured in green.

Photo: private screenshot + Unsplash

the whole map of Denmark. It’s a fun feature, where you compete with yourself a bit, and that may motivate some to get going.”

Schubert has a long range of gamification features up his sleeve in the style of ‘Ride the World’, which has already become a popular challenge in the community.

“Challenges like that are irresistible to many. We see that for some of our users, it has changed their behaviour and their way of engaging with the sport. Suddenly it becomes very empowering for them to reach the next turn, to colour in the next area,” explains the active founder, who himself plans on having the whole map coloured green in time.

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Jakob Breddam, project manager at DGI Impact, believes that Mountainbike United helps make the sport more fun and accessible.

Photo: Lasse Martinussen

Morten Kamp Schubert intends for Mountainbike United to become the preferred app for mountain bikers Photo: Lasse Martinussen

App Prevents Conflicts While Mountainbike United is addressed at mountain bikers, Schubert explains that the app is developed with a mind for all forest-goers, so everyone can coexist in the environment despite different speeds and interests.

“We want to help the environment and the different nature-goers coexist and get along. We do that by pointing mountain bikers towards places with official routes.”

Even though anyone can find a great route for mountain biking in the forest, consideration for other nature-goers bars the possibility for this kind of user-generated content on Mountainbike United.

“We only put in officially approved and sanctioned routes, and in that

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way we direct bikers away from paths and areas where they might not be welcome. It happens often that mountain bikers aren’t quite as welcome if they blast through a highly trafficked walking route or through an area for walking dogs,” Schubert, who has always loved the terrain-going biking sport, explains.

On official and approved routes, other forest-goers need to expect that mountain bikes can suddenly appear, so they are cautious and keep away from active routes. The same is not true of other parts of the forest, which can lead to bad experiences and in the worst cases collisions. By guiding users to the approved routes, the app helps prevent the kind of

conflicts that unorganised high-speed mountain bikers bring with them.

Interest in mountain biking has exploded in Denmark over the last five years according to the Danish Nature Agency, and especially during the corona crisis, the routes have seen increased activity. There are no exact figures, but it is estimated that around 300,000 Danes mountain bike more or less regularly. Of those, only 3% are organised into traditional clubs.

The app currently has 133,000 downloads, and Schubert estimates that around 60,000 of those constitute active users. The basic version app is free to download and use, while many features require a monthly subscription fee of 49 kroner (8 dollars).

SportsTech in Motion 2021

completely changed in many of our clubs, where you’re a member until you opt out,” says the CEO with a smile, acknowledging that it all may sound somewhat banal.

In the context of Danish association sports culture, however, it is a wholly new way of thinking, and it is a practical contribution to a new kind of club affiliation.

“It really doesn’t matter if it’s the summer or the winter season - you just play handball until you don’t play handball anymore, whether it’s for 10 or for 2 seasons. Rather like having a Netflix subscription, where you’re a member as long as you pay,” the entrepreneur explains.

Jesper Weltström

“We Have Changed The Economy 140 per cent for These Clubs” Written by Camilla Bevensee, Nordic SportsLab

The software platform Klubmodul has consolidated and automated the administration of clubs and associations and is leading in its field in Denmark. The solution has improved club economies, and through more than a decade, the founder has observed how expectations to sports clubs have changed.

Klubmodul was a sportstech startup before sportstech startups were a thing. It began before apps required online credit cards. Before it was possible to be the accountant in an association without a HD degree in finance.

Thirteen years later, the administration system has helped change the approach to registration, bookkeeping, and charging in thousands of Danish associations.

Klubmodul provides accounting software, homepage, email, and registration services in one package deal, and according to CEO and founder Jesper Weltström, it has made a difference for the more than 2000 clubs the service counts among its customers.

“Our contribution to the broad world of sports is that we have changed the econo-

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my 140 per cent for these clubs. Previously, if a club started operating in August, it sent out giro cards a month ahead. Then two to three months would pass, and the club would not get its payments before sometime in November. The current arrangement allows the clubs to open registrations for the upcoming season in June, and when they begin charging, they will have all their money before the season even starts. To them, that’s a monumental difference,” says Welström.

Challenging the Mindset of Danish Sports Associations It is not just in expediting an otherwise slow and cumbersome charging process that Klubmodul has helped move sports and association culture in a much more efficient direction. Digital administration challenges the kind of season-based mindset that otherwise has characterised most clubs.

“The way club membership worked - and still does in many places - was having seasons with start dates and end dates, then usually a winter or summer break, and then you need to register anew before the start of a new season. That has

Business Before Association Culture Even though the development of the user-friendly and automated administration system has helped many associations and clubs across the entire country, Weltström did not invest considerable time and money in the company for the sake of volunteers or out of charity for sports. Klubmodul was first and foremost conceived as a business, and Weltström believes clubs should take the same approach of doing good business by providing good service for their members.

“We can observe how the individual club member’s expectations have changed just in the years we have been active, both in terms of what services they expect from their club, and what the club can expect in terms of participation from each member. Some clubs want high volunteer participation, and they make volunteer work a requirement for membership.

Other clubs are indifferent. And yet others tell their members that if they don’t volunteer, they need to pay more, as the club needs to hire an additional instructor,” Weltström explains.

In the eyes of the founder, one model is not necessarily better than the other.

He just notes that there are many ways of running an association, and the most important thing to him is that Klubmodul can support all of them.

“There is a cultural struggle right now.

Some clubs insist on staying volunteer-oriented presences in their local community, while others are saying ‘listen, you just pay your membership fee, and we provide the appropriate service’, and that is fine,” says Weltström, who nevertheless still sees most clubs sticking to classical sports association values.

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Sponsored: This article is made in cooperation with Turf Tank

Turf Tank: From Robot Skepticism to Innovative Mega Printer Football clubs hesitated to get to know Turf Tank’s robot before they joined in on the innovation. But today, the line marker robot is a top seller across sports disciplines in both the US and in Europe.

I

t started as a project in entrepreneurial studies at Business School Hjørring, where it quickly became clear that a robot marking sports fields would fill a void in the current market. And when Stefan Thilemann was introduced to the idea by one of the original founders, he found it so intriguing that he volunteered his assistance in developing it.

The prototype was brought to entrepreneur trade shows and competitions across the country, helping generate interest in the project, and ultimately securing the first investment. Thus, the foundations for a robotics company were laid. A company that today sells their robotic line marker for sports all over the world.

“It started out rather rigidly with the marking of a football field, and nothing else. But along the way, it’s become much more; today we can handle any sport from football to Quidditch, and the US is absolutely our largest market,” says Thilemann, who today is CTO of Turf Tank.

Robotics has come a long way, salespeople have been hired in both the US and Britain, and Stefan Thilemann teases a big announcement for next year – without quite lifting the veil for what the company has on the drawing board.

Even the humble company from Northern Jutland has to admit, that things are going great. But success was far from a given, and it was particularly hard convincing the first clubs to let a robot be part of their employee roster.

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Thrown Out for Getting It Right After the first prototype was demonstrated in 2015 (at the great Dana Cup football tournament in the founder’s hometown of Hjørring) almost a full year would pass before the first robot was sold to a customer in Denmark. On of the reason being, that clubs faced the robot with a certain scepticism, even if they could see the benefits productivity-wise.

“It was the first machine that could do this task autonomously – that could draw up the lines of a football field without any human interference or assistance. Most could see the value of it, but no one wanted to be the first to invest – after all, what if it didn’t work? We had to deal with that a lot in the beginning,” says Thileman.

Granted, in the beginning, functionality was limited to football fields with very strict measurements, and if the robot made any error in the process, it could not pick up from where it went wrong, but rather had to start a total do-over.

“In the beginning we’d cross our fingers at every demonstration, hoping that the lines would come out right. And if a prospective customer concluded that our lines were imprecise, they would practically throw us out,” Thilemann reminisces.

In most cases, however, he’d note that placement and measurement errors were with the manmade marking, not with the robot. And the customers surrendered to this new technology one after one, when they saw that the robot was right.

“Today our customers are Turf Tank ambassadors. When we are at a conven-

Stefan Thilemann CTO of Turf Tank

tion, they approach us, and they are so passionate about the product, that they’ll help selling it to other attendees. Our customers believe in our product and trust it so much that they recommend it to their peers,” says Thilemann.

Printer, Football Field Sized A time-consuming task solved efficiently by a robot. That was Turf Tank’s sales pitch in the beginning.

Since then, the robot’s level of precision has become an important selling point, as a wrongly drawn field can decide a match. And as the technology matures further, more and more possibilities arise for the robot’s use – even outside the playing field.

“We try and give the customers as many options as possible. As our method and technology has improved, they’ve opened new avenues for us. We started being able to have them write numbers and draw shapes, for instance for American football. But today we can also draw logos and all sorts of other things,” says Thilemann.

Today, Turf Tank is collaborating with its customers to figure out how the technology can contribute to the sports club in new ways. Besides marking lines, the customers are also able to print numbers, messages and shapes (like logos) in a precise and flexible way. This is already improving morale and sponsorship possibilities, but how far away from the sports field the robot will end up, only time will tell.

SportsTech in Motion 2021

WWW.TURFTANK.COM

INFO@TURFTANK.COM

+45 71 99 94 01

Turf Tank revolutionizes the line marking industry with the invention of the world’s first autonomous line marking robot for sports fields, the Turf Tank ONE. From small sports clubs and high schools to major colleges and professional teams, the robot helps sports facilities all over the world save time and money painting their fields: football, American football, rugby, lacrosse, baseball, and custom layouts in all sizes and shapes!

SAVE TIME

SAVE PAINT

PERFECT LINES EVERY TIME

Performance-enhancing Gear: Materials, Equipment, and Technology Push the Limits of Top Athletes There is a technological arms race in the world of sports, pushing the last marginals of performance out of the world’s top athletes. Materials, equipment, and technology have become deciding factors in bringing the medals home, says Team Danmark’s performance engineer – because of course they have one.

Written by Sebastian Kjær

T

he Olympics is without a question the greatest competition for track riders. Not only is the curve expected to top every fourth year; in a sport where spots on the podium is determined by marginals measured in thousandths, new gear is developed and perfected with the crucial event in mind.

“Everything we do is targeted at that every-fourth-year competition. If we’re good

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enough to win a World Championship medal underway, that’s excellent. But we are not prepared to push our margins with fancy technology or new equipment.

We save new advancements for the Olympics, so even if we are prepared a year ahead, we won’t bring it out before the Olympics,” says Andreas Top Adler, performance engineer at Team Danmark.

In other words: cycle sports is another arena for the technological arms race

that precedes the Olympics, and Adler’s job includes advising the national track riding team on their equipment, so they don’t lag behind competitively.

That equipment has taken a central role in cycling was abundantly evident during this year’s races at the Tokyo Olympics, where the English competitors argued that the Danish team’s shirts and pieces of tape on the knee were against regulations (and thus cheating) and

SportsTech in Motion 2021

In especially gear-heavy sports like cycling, the gear has become a factor just like the cyclers’ shape and skill. Andreas Top Adler, performance engineer at Team Danmark, does not believe that gear alone can win competitions – but that it is similarly hard to get the gold medal without world-class gear.

1: If the best driver isn’t driving the best car, he isn’t going to win,” he says.

that the team should be disqualified.

The international cycling federation UCI has a list of clearly stated rules for gear – a list whose very existence hints at how decisive equipment can be. For instance, equipment must be openly commercially available the same year it’s used competitively. And the English argued that the Danish shirts had not lived up that requirement, and argued that they may have enhanced Danish performance by up to 3 per cent.

While Adler isn’t worried about the British complaint – which did not influence the Danish team’s further advancement in the competition – he completely agrees that gear can be a decisive factor.

“You can’t win on good gear alone; you still need to have world-class athletes.

But the best athletes cannot do it on their own either. The support needs to be there. It’s like what they say in Formula

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The Struggle for the Last Marginals It certainly appears that the new wave of technology has had a real influence on the track riding performances in Tokyo, where the Danes raced their Olympic record-breaking way to the semi-finals against the Britons. And then almost broke the record again when they defeated the Britons in the semi-finals – only to see the Italians break it in the finals.

Even though the tradition of gathering the world’s best athletes every four years has been going for more than a century, the bar for ‘higher, faster, stronger’ is always rising. In athletics, 26 of the 47 Olympic records were broken between 2008 and 2016 (2020 is not included), as figures from Statista show.

So while athletes are getting better and better, improvements can hardly be attributed only to the last century’s evolutionary changes. Rather, technology appears to be the reason – both in terms of technology supporting better practice and concretely in the shape of better shoes, running mats, and paddles. All part of the struggle for the last marginals.

“I believe that there’s a general awareness that races and competitions are decided by differences in hundredths of a second. In cycling, finish photos are needed, and in sailing sports as well, which may not appear as close-run, but where a starting advantage of 10-20 centimetres can amount to a huge difference,” says Adler.

In the eight years he has been at Team Danmark, material, equipment, and technology have only become more important.

“It has gone more and more in this direction over the years. Eight years ago we were, in a Danish context, just upstarts. It was something that was experimented with on the side, but nothing established. But that has changed dramatically, and the focus on details, and the knowledge about them, have absolutely escalated over the last years,” he says.

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Performance Engineer At Team Danmark As performance engineer at Team Danmark, Andreas Top Adlers works with Denmark’s top athletes – the ones hoping to bring the medals home to Denmark.

His task is to advise and support national team coaches and athletes in matters of materials, equipment, and technology: • •

•

Materials: For instance carbon for bicycles or textiles and surface coatings in swimming.

Equipment: Rowers need oars, cyclers need helmets – and the right choice can give the marginal but winning edge.

Technology: Used for monitoring both athletes and equipment.

An Arms Race for Elites The kind of optimisation that Alder works with would not make a difference for most people. The broader population would not become faster cyclers because of a change in shirt. And even for the best junior rank athletes, he does not believe that technological optimisation should be a point of focus. Only the very best top athletes benefit from optimising their marginals.

“We work with some of the best athletes in the world. They’re already eating and exercising properly – and when all that is on track, it is the last marginals we apply gear and technology to. For common exercise, a watch to measure distance and speed if perfectly fine. But on the elite level, we examine and fine-tune far more delicate nuances,” says Adler.

Cycling helmets, masts, and swimwear are considered down to the smallest detail, and practice is supported by data. But according to Adler, that does not mean technology has taken over sports. It is just another competitive factor, as marginals most certainly can decide a competition – but only when dealing with talented and experienced athletes and coaches.

“Everyone has access to exercise-monitoring equipment, so that is fairly standard fare. The difference is rather in how good you are at interpreting data and applying it to the right exercise regimens. Elite athletes cannot increase their amount of practice – it’s already set to maximum capacity. For them, it’s a question of having a coach who can divide that time between practice types in the most effective way,” he says.

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Jannick Green, former goal keeper for the Danish national handball team, using a special tape on his heels to get the right amount of friction - and thereby a slight competitive edge.

Andreas Top Adler, Performance engineer at Team Danmark

SportsTech in Motion 2021

6 Megatrends Shaping the Future of Sports The way we play, exercise and consume sports is undergoing radical changes.

Copenhagen Institute for Futures Studies and DGI point to 6 megatrends that are going to affect the evolution of sports in the coming years.

I

t’s hard to predict the future. But megatrends is a great indicator as to what the direction is.

This doesn’t mean, that megatrends are going to turn everything upside down, so sports, clubs and associations will look completely different in a few short years.

But trends allow us to tap into the direction changes are flowing and act - as they are most likely here to stay and gradually change the way sports exists.

Copenhagen Institute for Futures Studies and DGI has found six significant megatrends, that they assume will affect sports as well as society as a whole in the coming years: Sustainability UN’s Sustainability Goals have defined a set of goals for a more sustainable future, and this is also going to affect sports and clubs. Both for the sake of our planet, but also because we as members, participants and viewers expect an opinion and effort on sustainability.

Digitization Digitization is everywhere and is also affecting sports to an increasing extent. Both when members interact with their club. When the club wants to improve its offerings.

When we gather around new sports through digital solutions. When we consume sports at a stadium or in front of the TV. And even the way we practice

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current, as well as future sports, is affected by digitization in several ways.

Health

Sports isn’t just for fun and cosy recreation - it’s also about health. For some, health has almost become a religion and the most important reason why they engage in sports - a trend that will likely gain additional traction going forward.

Individualism “One size fits all” is dead. In all parts of our lives, we’ve been accustomed to designing and tailoring products and solutions to fit our current state and situation. A development that has already made its initial splash in the world of sports.

Commercialisation Traditionelle, Danish associations have been run with a high degree of community and volunteering as a driving force. That tradition is now competing with more commercial offerings - sports, exercise and health have become a commodity.

Demographic changes The population is getting older, more people are single and the urban population is growing.

This presents new demands for organization, volunteering, facilities and associations as we know them.

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Sponsored: This article is made in cooperation with KMD

KMD Wants to Improve Sports with Data By making use of data, KMD is helping the sports industry optimise both sports performance and the underlying business. For KMD themselves, the investment is also a way of ensuring happier employees and fresh innovation.

KMD’s large, cumbersome IT solution is usually associated with state and communal projects. But the IT giant is far more than punched cards and local data.

Just a few years ago, KMD began developing sportstech solutions.

The company’s first major foray into the world of sports was through a partnership with the Danish League, which represents Danish football clubs in the country’s top-level tournaments. When KMD contacted the association in 2017, they were in the process of collecting data on football court activities - including the positional data on players and balls that are used in media and broadcasting.

“It was a huge media gimmick measuring which players did the most running and ran the fastest. After some back and forth with the Danish League on the possibilities, we saw the data having much larger potential. The sports industry is in dire need of digitalisation including companies with large revenues,” says Christian Binggeli-Winter, Vice President for Information Management & Analytics at KMD. From Gimmick to Business Tool First step in the partnership was to secure ownership rights over the data and collect it in data warehouse that all the clubs could access. That set up step two: making it possible to translate the data into possibilities and solutions useful to the clubs in their day-to-day operations.

How do the football clubs ensure they are properly informed when the right player is available on the transfer market - not because they have contact with the player, but because the data suggests they’re a good fit? What correlations does the data show between what happens at

22

practice and the results of a match? And is it possible to automatise reporting on each player’s performance after a match?

“Data can be used for so much more than just checking who ran the most and who needs to be substituted because their heart rate is too high. In the big picture, the data can show whether a club is on the right track in terms of both sports and business. And by seeing a football club as a professional business operating on professional strategies, we can start challenging and amending those strategies with the help of data,” says Binggeli-Winter.

Today, KMD works not just with football, but have partnered with ice hockey and handball associations too. Additionally, they work directly with multiple clubs, and are in talks with Olympic athletes.

KMD is convinced that their work primarily affects community spirit and openness. The data needs to belong to the clubs, and everyone, not just the clubs, must be able to create value from it.

That is why the data is being used to formulate actionable solutions and tools.

For instance, a VR-solution meant to help players visualise a match situation in advance. Or a platform that collects data on sleep to identify and improve upon sleep’s effect on performance. And most recently, a solution to operate the entire commercial aspect of a club from a data-oriented starting point - everything from the sponsorship deals to ticket sales.

“We need to reinvent ourselves and not just deliver a one-time service. And that’s why we have developed so many exciting solutions around these goods ideas alongside experts and startups. We want to match with partners who excel in their own field - we just need to be there to help create the data’s ecosystem,” says Binggeli-Winter.

Innovation and Happy Employees For KMD, the investment in sportstech is far cry from its other solution, which largely provides systems for pensioning

Christian Binggeli-Winter Vice President for Information Management & Analytics at KMDMunicipality

and unemployment benefits. But that might be why the venture has made other dividends than just more income.

“The sports industry takes its work very seriously, because very little separates third place from fourth place. And I believe that we, as an organisation, can learn much from these projects, as we often apply new technologies and methods to create improvements measured in just a few percentile points,” says Binggeli-Winter.

At the same time, he argues that this creates happier employees, as they get to use their data-related competences in ways related to their spare time passions. And that rubs off on other areas within KMD. “In the sports industry, we have sometimes been pushing ourselves very hard when we were stumped, until at last we find a solution - which we then can bring back and make into new tech products that may be interesting to apply elsewhere. We are so used to having so much data in the public sector that we sometimes forget to ask ourselves if we have the right data, or if we should do something differently. In this way, sportstech is helping us push against our standard patterns,” says Binggeli-Winter.

SportsTech in Motion 2021

Sponsored: This article is made in cooperation with Movesense

Movesense: Movement Measurements Are a Paradigm Shift in Sports Tracking opers the tools and technology to build a dedicated solution for that. Our mission is to make the entry barrier to creating wearable solutions as low as possible,” Lahtinen says.

GSP and heart rate monitoring has become the norm in sports tracking.

But by adding measurements of movements as well, the tracking can go so much further. And Movesense has made the platform that makes it accessible for the masses.

makes measuring movement relevant to almost all sports in the world. This makes the appeal much wider than that of heart rate monitoring and GPS; Movement measurement is a real gold mine for developing new relevant sports tracking solutions.”

Using your watch to track route and heart rate has become the standard for top athletes and avid amateurs alike in a few short years. It doesn’t matter if you use the data to improve your training or just claim your bragging rights on your favourite sports-focused social media; tracking-wearables has become an essential part of the equipment in many sports.

But according to Movesense, we’ve only seen the tip of the iceberg. The next paradigm shift in quantifying the sport we love will be driven by measuring our movement.

“An archer doesn’t get any useful information from GPS and heart rate is not that important for performance in archery. But knowing the rhythm of each shot, the stability before firing each arrow, etc. could be very interesting and opens new ways to optimize training and improve performance,” says Terho Lahtinen, Senior Manager of Future Concepts in Suunto, which Movesense is a part of, and adds: “All sports are about movement, which

An open platform for wearables Movesense has extensive experience in GPS and heart rate monitoring through Suunto sports watches. But after building their sensor for movement measurement, they realized just how much of a game changer this could be to sports tracking.

Which in turn made them re-think the whole business model.

“It has the potential to become a much bigger business than what sports watches is today. Our conclusion was: This opportunity is so big, that we as a company can only scratch the surface of what’s possible. So we decided to make an open platform,” Lahtinen says.

This platform includes both the hardware needed as well as digital tools that make it easy for entrepreneurs and innovators to develop wearables that can track their favourite sport - without the heavy upfront investment in hardware development and production facilities.

“We don’t know much about volleyball, but if someone else wants to measure movements in volleyball, we give devel-

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The depth is endless The movement sensor from Movesense is small, durable and weighs in at less than 10 grams, which makes it attachable to the athletes’ limbs and sports equipment alike. When worn with a chest strap, it can also measure heart rate and ECG. The versatile attaching options provide a lot of new ways to track and optimize training and performance.

As a few examples, the Movesense sensor is used for studying visual perception of soccer players (attached to the head), analyzing swimming technique, as well as tracking the training of javelin throwers (with a sensor on the wrist, hip, foot and on the javelin itself).

In other words, the possibilities in this new paradigm of tracking are endless.

Movesense would never be able to cover all the opportunities themselves. And for that reason, they would rather make it easy for others to utilize their technology.

“It’s a business opportunity for us, but it’s also a mission for us to make sports tracking accessible in a much wider way,” Lahtinen says and adds: “Today, generalist fitness trackers are easily available, but solutions aimed at specific sports are often too expensive and complicated for the broader audience.

We already have a number of customers working with amateur teams and individual sports participants, because with Movesense, they can provide very valuable insights at a much lower cost.

I’m sure that in all sports at all levels, there are a lot of motivated athletes who want to improve their performance. And measuring is a way to find useful insights that make training more effective, no matter if it is about strength, speed, agility, reaction time, technique, or some other element of athletic performance.”

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The Confederation of Danish Industry Sees Sports Technology as a Danish Position of Strength: “We’re Capable of Something Special” Sportstech is booming globally, but Denmark has been dealt an especially strong hand when it comes to grabbing global market shares, argues the Confederation of Danish Industry.

Written by Sebastian Kjær

N

ew technologies change the way we participate in and consume sports and exercise. And that is not only a good thing for sports and the athletes. The Confederation of Danish Industry (DI) sees the contours of a great business opportunity for Denmark.

“We think it is a very interesting area.

It might even become a new position of strength for Denmark,” says Jens Holst-Nielsen, Deputy Director at DI, and continues: “We have secured our classic positions of strength - like design, green technology, and life science - because we have comparative advantages against other countries. And we can see the same advantages in sportstech. We’re capable of something special.”

To strengthen the industry, DI bets on sportstech as a partner of DIF Innovation Lab, alongside DIF and Danish Design Centre. The goal is quite simply to stimu-

late growth and increase employment in the sportstech sector.

An Ace Up The Sleeve At present, sportstech is a booming industry globally. A report from the accountancy titan KPMG shows that the industry was valued at 27.5 billion dollars globally in 2018, and is expected to grow to 93.8 billion dollars in 2027.

While Holst-Nielsen emphasises that Danish companies’ general capacity for innovation, willpower and an adventurous spirit are strengths when competing internationally, he also sees a particular ace up the sleeve of the sportstech industry: “Combined with Denmark’s well-organised sports communities and leagues, who can provide testing facilities and data for companies developing products for the sports world, we have a tremendous advantage in securing market shares of this globally growing market,” he says.

He notes that both clubs and sports

leagues are tremendously willing to enter dialogues with the business world. And this widespread culture of cooperation is also present in both new tech startups and established companies wanting to enter the world of sports.

“Many of the traditional industries already have branches in the sports sector – or they have the potential to.

Traditional food companies are starting to launch functional products aimed at athletes, and the health, clothing, and fashion industries have done the same. It is a fast-growing market that traditional industries can tap into,” he says.

A Global Perspective Now Denmark already has strong sports organisations, a digitally competent population, and a range of sportstech companies who have shown just how great the potential really is.

Denmark is in a very strong position if the efforts can be coordinated between different stakeholders towards global goals. Which is one of the reasons why The Danish Industry Foundation has backed DIF Innovation Lab with 9.9 million DKK. “The international sports market is growing, and we need to ride that wave.

A lot of countries is already investing into sports-focused startup hubs, and we have to target our efforts if we want our share of the market,” says Thomas Hofman-Bang, CEO at The Danish Industry Foundation, and adds: “With DIF Innovation Lab we want to strengthen the ecosystem of sportstech and create an attractive community for product development and export. For instance, by partnering with stakeholders within sports, business and knowledge to ensure a broad anchoring in the world of sports, mobilize business partnerships and strengthen the access to venture capital, test facilities and students.”

DIF Innovation Lab •

•

Grass for agriculture, domestic use – and sports. According to Jens Holst-Nielsen, Deputy Director at DI, the sports-boom is a business opportunity for new startups as well as established companies: “Some companies have already succeeded – for instance DLF, who produce seeds.

They have traditionally produced them for fields and agriculture, but they saw a market in football fields. They have done some of what we also expect other traditional industries to do.”

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The project’s goal is to strengthen growth and employment for Danish companies and Danish sports by supporting the development of new and innovative products, solutions, and services for the sports industry.

The project is backed by the Sports Confederation of Denmark, the Confederation of Danish Industry, and Danish Design Centre. The Danish Industry Foundation supports the project with 9,9 million DKK.

Source: www.industriensfond.dk/difinnovationlab

SportsTech in Motion 2021

Sponsored: This article is made in cooperation with Danske Bank

to sports clubs all over the world, particularly amateur-level and youth clubs.

“Before Veo entered the fray, there was no equipment for recording matches available to this demographic. That’s why we have democratised the recording of sports matches; we believe that if there’s more video recording in amateur-level and youth sports, the clubs are much better equipped to develop their talents, whether players or coaches,” says Henrik Teisbæk, CEO at Veo. The company has just launched a new generation of its signature cameras, which are now capable of livestreaming any of the 50,000 matches recorded weekly on Veo cameras - a delight for fans, parents, and friends.

“This way, we’re helping generate interest in the sport and strengthen internal ties inside the clubs, as we can make the club experience available outside the playing area,” says Teisbæk.

Veo’s camera enables sports teams to record and live-stream matches in an automated way.

Danske Bank Is a Strategic Financial Partner for Growing Companies Like Veo It takes some out of the box thinking when Danske Bank and its client companies in the tech industry plan the next step on their journey. The sportstech company Veo benefits and has just launched a new version of their intelligent camera for recording sports matches.

When Danske Bank’s client companies in the tech industry are ready to take the next step in developing their business, there is more on offer than the traditional bank services and products.

“We think out of the box, and we tend to bring in our networks. For instance, if we’re dealing with access to risk-friendly capital, we’d cooperate with numerous Danish business angels and venture funds.

This way, we connect the companies with

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the relevant people,” says Henrik Specht, Growth Advisor at Danske Bank.

This way, Danske Bank plans to be a strategic partner in finance for companies, supporting them and helping them set up in other countries, enter the stock market, or initiate contact with larger companies for B2B sales.

“The more products and customers the companies have, the greater their need for discussing different strategic options is. Where to invest next - England or Germany?” says Specht.

Video-Promoted Talent Veo is one of the companies helped and advised by Danske Bank.

The tech company provides AI-run cameras, capable of recording matches without expensive equipment or an operator,

International Payments Veo is present in many markets, including the American and the British, and it has therefore been important to the company to have a bank capable of managing and predicting potential challenges relating to international payments.

“Because we are a global SaaS company, we need to have an in-depth understanding of payment systems, of risks involved in currency exchanges, and of other complex financial challenges that a good bank could help us overcome - we truly appreciate Danske Bank and their help in this,” says Teisbæk.

Next time Veo is set to expand into a new market, Danske Bank is therefore ready to advise on possible challenges.

“The better equipped we are, and the more we get to have discussions on strategy with the company, the greater the chance and the possibility that we will make the difference we want to make,” says Specht.

Henrik Specht Growth Advisor, Danske Bank

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Investors Pour Billions into the Sportstech Industry Despite the COVID-19 pandemic, sportstech is a rapidly advancing industry.

Its success may be owed to us all having become more data-oriented and more digital, say experts, who believe the industry has just started growing.

Written by Erik Lillelund

Y

ou would think that a time of pandemic, with its limited spectators at sports events, would put a damper on the growth of sports technology. Nevertheless, 2021 is already a record-breaking year in terms of investment: Over the first six months, more than 5 billion dollars have been invested in the industry worldwide.

The industry’s growth has not gone unnoticed at Keystones, an investor network for business angels. They have set up a special sportstech group of 15 investors, all of whom have invested in multiple Danish sportstech startups. The group’s chairman - lawyer and former director of the Danish Ice Hockey Union Enver Hansen - believes that the industry generally has flourished, even though the pandemic has clearly been felt in some area.

“Obviously the corona pandemic has affected companies hit by audience and

viewing rights-related issues, as those that purchase viewing rights would very much want the audience to be there. But overall, the sportstech industry has done well during the pandemic, especially its digital products, naturally,” the group’s chairman says.

He nevertheless anticipates that the industry will exceed the already high expectations.

“The forecast says that the global sportstech market’s worth will exceed 31 billion dollars by 2024, but I think we will have to amend and upscale those numbers along the way. It may be closer to 40 billion. And in my unequivocal assessment, that will have an effect on Denmark,” he says.

In other words: the sportstech industry is booming. Already by the first half of 2021, 14 rounds of more than 100 million dollars have been put into sportstech startups globally. These are record-high numbers.

Enver Hansen Head of Sportstech Group, Keystones

Ulla BrockenhuusSchack Partner, SEED Capital

Global SportsTech investment per year 5.03 billion

4.9 billion

3.22 billion

3.44 billion

2.18 billion

2017 Source: SportsTechX

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2018

2019

2020

2021 (first six months)

SportsTech in Motion 2021

Consumers Want to Be Measured and Weighed The umbrella terms of ‘sportstech’ covers, among others, digital fitness, fantasy sport and betting, performance tracking, and fan engagement. The success seen in many of these areas can be ascribed to current macro-trends over the world. We want to measure, optimise, and share our performance with friends and family. That is the view of Ulla Brockenhuus-Schack, partner in the venture capital fund Seed Capital.

“Overall, sports have gotten increasingly data-oriented on professional, semi-professional, and amateur levels.

As a consumer, you want to know how you measure against yourself, your friends, and the professional top athletes. ‘Play with the pro’, as they say. The fight for talent has become a megatrend, and to be data-oriented, you need technology. That is the exact connection that creates so many opportunities for tech companies,” she says.

Hansen agrees with this analysis, which also suggests that more and more have the option of arranging their activities along professional lines, if they so choose. That entails a larger degree of freedom to follow and engage with one’s favourite team and favourite discipline.

And investors are starting to realize this.

“Sportstech is not some red-headed stepchild of the investment world but is widely recognized. What keeps investors away are the same things that keep them away from any other given industry. Rather, there is a strong belief in the growth of this industry - especially as people globally get more spare time to engage as both fans and participants,” the chairman of the Keystones group assesses.

A Danish Head Start Even though the Danish sportstech successes like VEO, Endomondo, Tonser, and Trackman can be counted on a couple of hands, entrepreneurs back in Denmark still have a head start when they begin developing new digital sportstech solutions.

“Danish companies have a clear advantage because the test market is so good in Denmark. The Danes are very much natives of the digital world, and therefore very qualified consumers. This can be an

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Distribution of SportsTech Startups in the Nordics 2021 34,9% 28,6% 20,2% 15,5% 0,8%

Sweden

Denmark

Finland

Norway

Iceland

Source: SportsTechX

SportsTech Funding in the Nordic 189,5

102,8

82,6 22,7

30,9

2016

2017

50

2018

2019

2020

2021

Source: SportsTechX

Top 5 countries by investment in 2021 2022.1 mil.USD

675 mil.USD

USA

China

642.5 mil.USD

India

505.2 mil.USD

Canada

359.1 mil.USD

UK

Source: SportsTechX

advantage for when Danish companies go out in the wider world, as it means many Danish solutions have international potential from day one,” says Hansen.

The investment field in sportstech is however still dominated by large countries like the US, China, and India. The latter especially has profiled itself globally with the fantasy sport company Dream 11, which is one of the first Indian companies in history to achieve so-called ‘unicorn’ status: a startup with a value of more than 1 billion dollars.

This is no coincidence. Many sports technology companies are greatly successful these days because their digital solutions cross into several different markets and appeal to wide swathes of consumers.

“The consumer angle of this industry is very interesting. As companies can often spread to many different intersections - for instance media firms delivering content - it means they can appeal to many different consumer bases. And that creates a wealth of options for tech companies,” says Brockenhuus-Schack.

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InchByInch Wants to Help Children And Youths Reach Their Full Potential – as Soccer Players and as People Written by Erik Lillelund

A new app lets soccer stars and experts pass their training, tactics and mental fortitude on to soccer-happy children and adolescents. “Talent development needs to be available for everyone regardless of gender, age, size and talent,” the creators say.

Talent development should be for the many, not the few. That is the creed behind “InchByInch”, an app that Anders Randrup, a former professional soccer player along with entrepreneur Rasmus Bruun and angel investor and co-founder of the TechBBQ expo Daniel Laursen has launched. Here, professional players and coaches give soccer-playing children and youths useful advice, mental exercises and video content to help better them become better soccer players. Regardless, whether the user wants to go pro or just to improve.

Just a few button presses, and Emiliano Marcondes of Bournemouth is explaining his free-kick technique, Nicoline Sørensen of Everton is sharing good offense tips, or Per Thølesten, the chef for the Danish National Men’s Team, is explaining his pre-match menu.

The platform is initially free. But the aim is to make InchByInch a premium product with a fixed monthly subscription fee.

“We are not an elite product; we are a wide-reaching product. We want to encourage as many as possible to play soccer for as long as possible. Talent development needs to be available for everyone regardless of gender, age, size and talent. We want little Lise or Lars in Svebølle to have access to the same quality training they have in FC København, FC Midtjylland, or Brøndby IF. The best training should be available to everyone,” says Bruun, Managing Partner of the company.

A Platform for Everyone When Randrup retired as a professional player, he started looking back on his career reflecting on some of the things,

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he wished he would have known. After he met Bruun and Laursen in the startup circles, they all quickly agreed on a direction for a project.

“We really were problem-oriented before we were business-oriented. We knew that we wanted to work with soccer. For inspiration, we contacted professional players in our network and asked them the same questions that Anders had asked himself. It quickly showed a pattern relating to diet, sleep, and prioritising. From there, we worked out a solution to help the next generation,” says Bruun.

It can be tough and frustrating to spend energy in sports when things do not seem to pan out right. That is why it is important to show children and youths that many stars have faced the exact same challenges as themselves. The founders have even teamed up with a ‘digital pedagogue’ to ensure all communication is friendly to the intended users.

“It is important to us that children and youths can see themselves in the content we create. It can be difficult relating to the big stars playing for clubs and on the national team. But if you ask Thomas Delaney about the challenges he faced when he was younger, he will tell you about being a small kid on the field, with all kinds of frustrations. And that is much easier for young people to relate to,” says Bruun.

Big Dreams Professional soccer players like Daniel Wass, Mikkel Bischoff and Kevin Mensah have, in addition to appearing in the app’s videos, also invested in InchByInch. Additionally, a couple of angel investors and a loan from Vækstfonden have helped secure a solid start.

As of now, the company is working to raise capital in the millions for the second round of investment. A following seed-round specially aimed at venture capital funds is already being planned.

The sportstech company does not lack ambition. Quite the opposite. Bruun

dreams of entering the Norwegian, German and English markets in the future, and won’t reject the possibility of expanding to cover other sports disciplines if InchByInch is successful. He believes in the concept that much.

“We are incredibly scalable, because our product requires little more than copying the source code, producing videos for the new market – that way, we’re expanding the business. If we’re lucky enough to get a video with Pierre-Emile Højbjerg, there would be interest from all over the world.

There are children in China who would love to know how he practised when he was 15,” says Bruun.

InchByInch •

• • • • •

The InchByInch app collects the stars’ and experts’ advice and secrets on practice, tactics, health, and mental preparation for all soccerhappy children and youths.

Founded: 2020.

Founders: Anders Randrup, Daniel Laursen, Rasmus Bruun.

City: Copenhagen.

Employees: 15 - Three founders, four full-time employees, four part-time employees, and four interns.

Traction: 7,500 downloads and 50,000+ video plays.

SportsTech in Motion 2021

Sportstechs to Watch SwimCam

Replay Institute

Camera that helps swimmers improve their technique

Tactical software and virtual reality training

ClimbAlong App that digitizes climbing routes

SwinCam is a waterproof camera that allows swimmers to start streaming video of their training to an app in a matter of minutes - just by the press of a button and with no cables involved.

This way, swimmers get feedback on their training every day and can improve their technique with the help of video monitoring and the app specifically designed for swimming without a coach needing to be constantly involved.

Hubbster Social sports club in a box

ClimbAlong is an app that wants to change climbing by digitizing climbing routes using a technology they call “M.A.G.I.C.”.

The company’s AI is able to find any climbing route in a picture and turn them into a model, which gives the user every necessary information - such as start and end holds, difficulty and zones.

An important part of being a professional football player is the ability to read the game and make the right decisions in split seconds. Replay Institute enables them to train this on a virtual reality pitch.

This allows players and coaches to align, discuss and train situations in the game before they even happen - all thanks to virtual reality.

Spraino Tape providing friction for indoor sports

Zoles 3D-printed insoles

Hubbster wants to bring back play to the city by making it a more integrated part of urban life in the form of ‘Hubs’; ondemand boxes with equipment for sports and play accessible 24/7.

Users locate and access the hubs with an app, which also adds a social layer where they can invite friends to join in on the game.

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All people are different, so why do we force our feet to fit into standard shoes?

That questions ignited the startup Zoles, which now has a solution in the form of 3D-printed insoles.

The company scans and maps the feet of each individual customer, customise the design of the insoles and 3D prints it for the perfectly tailored insole.

Ankle injuries are a huge issue in indoor sports like handball, badminton and volleyball. Spraino has found the most efficient way to solve the problem to be a special kind of tape that improves friction.

Through intensive research, the company has developed a ‘Tribo’-tape which reduces serious ankle injuries by almost 60 per cent.

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The Sports of the Future Mix Tech and Movement.

And the Ambition Is to Be as Big as Counter-Strike Sportstech companies EVOtag and Jabii have each created a game combining the technical aspects of gaming with some real-life sweat. The next step is building communities and organising tournaments, for the ambitions are not small: These games have the potential to be as big as Counter-Strike.

Written by Anna Bernsen

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L

ars Sønderskov dreams of pitting real special forces soldiers against professional gamers in a match of EVOtag.

“Who would win? Those who have trained for combat in the real world, or those who have trained in the world of computer games?” asks Sønderskov, CEO and founder of EVOtag.

In EVOtag, each player is equipped with the pistol-like EVOtagger device and a smartphone. In the EVOtag app, the player can, among other things, see a map of the game, choose weapon and ammunition, place landmines, and keep a tally of “killed” opponents.

In other words: EVOtag resembles traditional shooting games quite a lot, but with one major difference: EVOtag is played outside, in the physical world, and if you want to win, you need to move.

“We want to create an experience that makes the player forget time and space, just like when they are sitting down and gaming. It is a huge added bonus that you are being active and out in the fresh air and sunlight,” says Sønderskov.

Video Games as a Recognized Sport It is not many years ago that video games like Counter-Strike and League of Legends were professionalized and

SportsTech in Motion 2021

recognized as sports under the term esports. Consequently, there are today tournaments with millions of viewers, organisations that unite the industry, and you can practice Counter-Strike in local clubs in the same way you can practice football.

A new generation of sports hopes to emulate this success. The new generation combines tech and movement, so players break a sweat while getting the gaming experience, health bars and combo strikes included.

App Delivers the Gaming Experience Jabii is another new game mixing gaming and physical sport.

In Jabii, each player has a special boxing glove in their hand, and the goal is to knock out the opponent. But the player has to be quick and dextrous. The boxing glove has a telescopic arm giving it greater reach than most professional boxers. However, it does not pack the same punch. An airbag at the glove’s end blunts the blows, so the punches do not hurt.

The telescopic glove could, in and of itself, be something of a gadget. But Jabii has chosen to tie in an app, thus giving it extra depth.

“To begin with we did not consider linking an app to the gloves, as it was expensive to develop. But an app allows for all the functions of the gaming world.

You have data collection on matches, a lot of light and sound effects, even match replays,” says Giang Le, CTO and co-founder of Jabii.

Communities Are All-Important With 2,000 EVOtaggers and 2,200 Jabii gloves sold in Denmark, there is still quite a long way to go until the games are as accessible as football or Counter-Strike.

But both companies are well on their way to building up communities around their game, so the games can be recognized as established sports down the line. Here, partnerships with associations and organisations play a crucial role.

“We are working with a lot of communal clubs and esports associations, and they are incredibly important in this situation. Because if they think we have a cool product, they will probably want to help setting up some events,” says Sønderskov from EVOtag, and elaborates: “We are also working with the Danish Gymnastics and Sports Association, with the purpose of organising tournaments.

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The goal is to arrange several cross-country tournaments, where players meet and participate in larger matches.”

Jabii has similarly sold its boxing gloves to several esports associations and youth clubs, which for Le is a step in the right direction if Jabii is to become an established sport. But the company is also working on integrating the community directly into the app.

“We want to breathe some life into the community by letting our users message each other directly in the app, so the app can facilitate meetups in the real world.

Our hope is that users will start organising local tournaments on their own,” says Le. As Big As Counter-Strike Neither Sønderskov nor Le are afraid of dreaming big when it comes to the new generation of sportstech games.

“If we are allowed to dream, I hope that EVOtag will be as big as Counter-Strike.

But it will definitely take a lot of work,” Sønderskov says, while Le adds: “I believe that the new sports will, in time, surpass the traditional ones, because they have so many more possibilities. But for one thing, technology needs to keep up, and the sport needs to get organised.”

When the founders of EVOtag and Jabii both foresee a bright future for this type of game, it is partially because Denmark has a flourishing culture of associations and communities. And they are crucial when it comes to organising the gaming events that both Sønderskov and Le believe are key for the games to be established as sports.

“Denmark is a good place to start because of the strong community culture.

So if the Danish associations and its committed organisers start arranging games and tournaments, then I can absolutely envision EVOtag becoming as big as Counter-Strike,” Sønderskov says.

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SportsTech in Motion 2021