Key Takeaways
- • ScorePlay, a New York City-based startup founded in 2020, has built an AI-powered digital asset management platform for sports organizations, according to a Sports Business Journal startups interview.
- • The company has raised $1.5 million to date and is pre-seed, with plans to pursue a seed round and seek additional U.S. investment in the coming months.
- • Investors named include 35V (the company of Kevin Durant and Rich Kleiman), APEX Capital, Sorare CEO Nicolas Julia, and German World Cup winner Mario Götze.
- • ScorePlay grew from 10 to 100 clients last year, with MLS clubs and six NWSL clubs among its U.S. customers, and CEO Victorien Tixier said the company is almost profitable.
- • Pricing is a flat monthly fee for smaller organizations or annual fee for larger ones, based on teams, sports and athletes rather than content volume or user count.
Summary
ScorePlay, a New York City-based company founded in 2020, provides an AI-powered media asset management platform to sports teams, leagues, federations, agencies and sports brands, according to an interview published by Sports Business Journal in its Startups series. The company describes its product as a centralized hub where organizations upload photos and videos; the platform's AI tags athletes, sponsors and logos automatically, and event data can be added to make files searchable. The platform also includes an athlete app for social sharing, a sponsor portal offering partners dedicated content libraries, and a planned licensing platform for publishers.
CEO and co-founder Victorien Tixier said the company competes with general storage tools such as Dropbox and Google Drive, broadcast-oriented digital and media asset management systems, and content distribution tools such as Greenfly and Socialie. ScorePlay positions itself as a single tool that replaces several of these, and as the only one dedicated to the sports industry. The company began with a private beta of eight customers, offered free for six months, and says growth has come largely through word of mouth. Tixier said that in the U.S. it is hiring a sales lead focused on clubs, leagues, brands, colleges and grassroots sports, while Europe is served through country managers.
The company reported going from 10 to 100 clients last year and cited signings with MLS clubs and six NWSL clubs. Tixier said he relocated to the U.S. at the start of the year to scale there. He also said ScorePlay is almost profitable, and that while venture investors have become more focused on profitability and valuations are lower than a year earlier, sports organizations' demand for media tools has not changed materially. Stated goals include becoming the media tool for every major league, competition and sports brand worldwide.
CEO and co-founder Victorien Tixier said the company competes with general storage tools such as Dropbox and Google Drive, broadcast-oriented digital and media asset management systems, and content distribution tools such as Greenfly and Socialie. ScorePlay positions itself as a single tool that replaces several of these, and as the only one dedicated to the sports industry. The company began with a private beta of eight customers, offered free for six months, and says growth has come largely through word of mouth. Tixier said that in the U.S. it is hiring a sales lead focused on clubs, leagues, brands, colleges and grassroots sports, while Europe is served through country managers.
The company reported going from 10 to 100 clients last year and cited signings with MLS clubs and six NWSL clubs. Tixier said he relocated to the U.S. at the start of the year to scale there. He also said ScorePlay is almost profitable, and that while venture investors have become more focused on profitability and valuations are lower than a year earlier, sports organizations' demand for media tools has not changed materially. Stated goals include becoming the media tool for every major league, competition and sports brand worldwide.
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