UberSense raises $1.1 million from Google Venture, Atlas, and others to support sports coaching app
The app enables coaches to shoot video on an iPhone or iPad and then mark it up with virtual chalk — as well as audio commentary — to help athletes improve their performance. It also allows coaches to compare one athlete's movements side-by-side with another's. Several Olympic teams used the app to prepare for this summer's London games, including USA Gymnastics and USA Volleyball. The company says that its app has been downloaded 800,000 times so far, and that more than 6 million videos have been created. UberSense says that gymnastics, baseball, and golf are the three sports that the app is most often used for.
Co-founders Amit Jardosh and Krishna Ramchandran originally started developing the app in hopes of improving their own golf games. Last year, they left jobs at Yahoo and Citrix Online to work on the startup full-time. The new funding comes from Google Ventures, Atlas Venture, Boston Seed Capital, and Ty Danco, an angel investor based in Vermont who participated in the 1980 and 1984 Winter Olympics as a luge racer.
Jardosh says that the coaches of MIT's golf and men's tennis teams are using the app, adding, "We are now starting to reach out to more local teams and coaches."
UberSense has seven employees, and is moving from Cambridge to new offices in Downtown Crossing this week. I last covered the company in June, when UberSense presented as part of TechStars' "demo day."
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About Scott Kirsner Scott Kirsner was part of the team that launched Boston.com in 1995, and has been writing a column for the Globe since 2000. His work has also appeared in Wired, Fast Company, The New York Times, BusinessWeek, Newsweek, and Variety. Scott is also the author of the books "Fans, Friends & Followers" and "Inventing the Movies," was the editor of "The Convergence Guide: Life Sciences in New England," and was a contributor to "The Good City: Writers Explore 21st Century Boston." Scott also helps organize several local events on entrepreneurship, including the Nantucket Conference and Future Forward. Here's some background on how Scott decides what to cover, and how to pitch him a story idea.
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