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Sports Tech HQ Inc., an initiative launched by the Indiana Economic Development Corp. in June 2022, has secured $4.5 million from the IEDC to fund its operations for the next two years.
That amount is double the $2.25 million that the IEDC initially invested two years ago.
As was the case with the initial $2.25 million, this new round of $4.5 million in funding comes from the state’s 21st Century Research and Technology Fund. Sports Tech HQ and the IEDC signed the funding agreement in April; the contract runs through March 31, 2026.
“It’s going to help us deepen our capacity and broaden our reach,” said Jeffrey Hintz, Sports Tech HQ’s executive director.
The goal of Sports Tech HQ is to build Indiana’s sports technology sector, in part by luring startups here and helping them connect with the state’s existing sports ecosystem.
To date, Sports Tech HQ’s efforts have resulted in several announcements. California-based Edge Sound Research, whose technology allows spectators to both see and feel sound, announced in December it was working with Pacers Sports & Entertainment to demo its technology and planned to establish a presence in Indiana.
Since December, several other sports-tech startups have also announced their intent to set up shop in Indiana. They include Chicago-based Ganance, which offers a health tracker that attaches to the back of a wristwatch; Cambridge, Massachusetts-based DaVinci Wearables, which is developing sensor-embedded smart clothing for female athletes; and Ireland-based Wiistream, which offers a customizable streaming platform for sports organizations.
And in February, race car manufacturer Dallara and Italy-based AK Informatica announced the launch of a joint venture: a simulation racing startup called Dallara-AK Esports.
The increased IEDC funding, Hintz said, will allow Sports Tech HQ to continue to work with these startups and to scout for new startups that it might persuade to come to Indiana in the future.
To that end, Hintz said, his organization is planning to expand its staff in coming months. At present, Sports Tech HQ employs only Hintz plus one part-time employee. The organization is currently working to hire for two new positions: a director of marketing and a business development employee. By year’s end, the organization could have as many as six employees.
In the big picture, Hintz said, his goal is to continue the early momentum that Sports Tech HQ has seen—and to keep a step ahead of the competition. “We feel like we’ve got a head start, and we’ve got to keep going to make sure that we continue to have an advantage here,” he said.
Hintz said Indiana’s other competitors in this space include Texas and Atlanta, Georgia.
Texas is home to Houston-based HTX Sports Tech, which launched in 2020. And earlier this year the California-based innovation network Plug and Play opened a sports tech-themed office in the Dallas suburb of Frisco. Atlanta has the ComCast SportsTech Accelerator, which launched in 2020.
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Almost seems like giving away dollars, for relatively low employment gains in a tech field which can use any evolving tech to grow in a specialty field. It doesn’t seem to do much in the overall.