Blue Label Telecoms’ Blue Label Ventures has invested in technology start-up Mobii Systems, which provides rugby match analysis to teams and coaches to help them plan their game strategies.
Blue Label Ventures is the venture capital and private equity arm of the JSE-listed Blue Label Telecoms. The company will acquire up to 26% of Cape Town-based Mobii, “giving the company’s team of highly skilled developers of sports data applications the funding needed for new and ongoing product development, as well as access to a wider customer base and increased market share”, Blue Label said in a statement on Tuesday.
“Mobii’s team of engineers have, with very little funding, built two exciting and innovative applications that have massive potential to go global,” said Blue Label Ventures co-founder Tallies Taljaard in the statement.
“Through our investment, we will enable the business to grow and take advantage of opportunities for expansion into new markets. High-performance sporting technology is a global, multibillion-dollar industry that is still fragmented and underserved.”
Mobii built the timing platform on which Blue Label Telecom’s timed fitness events company, MyRun, operates. Activity data is collected from various wearable Mobii transponders and synchronised to a “microservices architecture” for real-time processing.
The technology platform comprises custom-designed electronic hardware and handles large-scale applications, and can be adapted for similar markets to collect Internet of things data sets. The system was built on Stratus technology, which “collects and processes billions of data points to create simplified reporting and predictive analysis tools”.
Springboks
Mobii has a longstanding relationship the Springboks and South African Rugby.
Taljaard said Blue Label hopes to bring Mobii’s technology to other companies in the group. “We want to give other companies in Blue Label the opportunity to leverage Mobii’s technology, particularly Ticketpro, which is the official ticketing partner of a number of sporting bodies.”
Mobii recently launched “Time of Flight”, a geolocation service that tracks players in action on the sports field, assisting them and their coaching staff with positioning in real-time and in-play. The Time of Flight system is “far more accurate than GPS because it functions within a small, focused arena, rather than via satellite communications”.
Mobii was founded by brothers Roderick and Brendan Barrett with the desire to make sports analysis a true science and take the emotion out of decisions.
The Blue Label investment will allow the company to take the technology to more markets around the world. It already has a presence in South Africa, France, Switzerland, Australia and the UK. — © 2019 NewsCentral Media
