Sportstech startup SportVot raises funding from Ankur Capital, others

Mumbai-based sports tech startup SportVot has raised an undisclosed amount in seed funding round led by Ankur capital, along with the participation from Capital A, SucSEED Innovation Fund, and Marwah Sports.

Founded by Shubhangi Gupta, Sidhhant Agarwal, and Yash Bhagwatkar, SportVot is a hyperlocal sports platform that aims at creating an online channel to stream sports events and help discover sports talent from the grassroots of India while creating a community of sports enthusiasts.

According to this startup, it has streamed over 18,000 sports matches, amassed 75 million views, and featured over 90,000 upcoming athletes so far.

The startup said India has over 10 million aspiring/emerging athletes (U-19), and around 100,000 + semi-professional/ professional tournaments occur annually. But most athletes do not get access to the right set of tools and platforms to showcase their talent and engage with the ecosystem. This results in a lack of transparency in talent discovery which in turn increases the number of dropouts in the Indian Sports Ecosystem.

Most of the sports games, other than the premier tier sports tournaments are not live-streamed or telecast across any platform in India. Sports streaming is expensive and complicated, the startup says.

A traditional broadcasting setup involves dependency on external service providers for expensive hardware, multiple complicated software and apps, and a special arrangement for OB vans. This makes the digitization of local games very difficult and hence no visibility to local talent. There is a need for a cost-effective streaming platform that undertakes the needs of teams, franchises, and fans.

SportVot said it not only enables streaming with the least amount of resources but also has a rich layer of tools overlay to edit, analyze, and share the videos across various channels.

According to the company's statement, The raised capital will be utilized for scaling the product and technology, expanding into new geographies across the country, and bringing access to live video capture to as many sports games as possible.

"We are extremely delighted to have our new investors on board and I look forward to working together with them as we discover the next generation of sports talent across the country," said Sidhhant Agarwal, Co-Founder of SportVot.

Rema Subramanian, Managing Partner at Ankur Capital, said, “Sportvot enables young sports persons to showcase their talent and be discovered, leading to penetration of sports into the masses and making India a leading sports nation.”

Ankit Kedia, Founder of Capital-A, said, "Sports are a part of Indian pop culture, and through its combination of technology and focus on the local sporting talent as well as events, SportVot has rapidly gained a significant standing in its domain. With a unique approach to not just showcasing talent from all over India, but also building an entire ecosystem that benefits all stakeholders, the platform is bound to grow as a major force.”

“According to Marketwatch, Global Live Streaming Market is expected to reach $24 billion by 2027 to register a CAGR of 28.1% during the projected period. Live video streaming is trending nowadays due to the increasing acceptance of YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, Hotstar, and many more.

"SportVot provides a cost-effective and convenient end-to-end solution to sports bodies and tournament organizers for capturing and broadcasting their games, audience/community engagement, brand sponsorships, and monetization," said Vikrant Varshney, Co-Founder & Managing Partner of SucSEED Innovation Fund.

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