Openactive Showcase Innovative Sports Startups
An OpenActive Accelerator programme funded by Sport England has provided ten innovative health technology startups with the platform to showcase its products and services to potential investors.
The OpenActive pitch event last week ran alongside the Open Data Institute Summit in London, which focused on the value of data.
The OpenActive Accelerator programme has helped provide support and mentoring for startups developing products and services using open opportunity data to assist people to be regularly active. The package has been valued at around £80,000 in worth to each of the ten startups.
The OpenActive Accelerator programme receives National Lottery funding from Sport England and is part of the community-led initiative OpenActive.
Startups on the programme were able to access office space at Huckletree West in White City, as well as gain insightful mentoring advice from experts in the sport, health, tech and business sectors. Further benefits included stands at events, speaking engagements and access to recently opened opportunity data about physical activity.
The participating startups have experienced 260 hours of business mentoring across the programme, including insight from the likes of London Sport, Monzo, Samsung and Octopus Ventures, with the startups receiving one-on-one sessions with the mentors to help them grow and develop their business.
Joining IPrescribe Exercise, Spryt, Onigo Escapes, Sweat and Sound, TrainasOne, Find a Race, Shout, Track Active and Outdoor Nation on the Accelerator were GoSweat.
Working to transform the way people find and book physical activity, GoSweat have integrated data sets into its technology and are currently working on a project with a leisure provider GLL, who boast over 250 leisure centres and partnerships with 30 local councils.
Steph Newport-Booth, co-founder of GoSweat said: “We’ve worked with some great mentors, who helped us refine our business and branding.
“We’ve been involved with Sport England and have had an amazing insight into how they work and the issues they face. All the startups on the OpenActive Accelerator are great, and offer us great support for the bad days, whilst also joining in and seeing the successes across the cohort.”
The startups on the OpenActive Accelerator have utilised advances in virtual reality, AI, blockchain and open data to access information about physical activities available to those people that require it.
Commenting on the programme, Orsola De Marco, head of startups at the Open Data Institute added: “The support of Sport England has given them insight into how behaviour change works in the physical activity sector and we know that they’ve built lifelong relationships with open data providers.
“We are delighted that the startups on the programme got so much from it. Huckletree gave them a community where they could develop partnerships with other like-minded businesses who were also based there.
“The startups have developed a clear understanding of the importance of open data and will be more likely to use it in the future. The ODI team and external mentors helped the startups to mature their products and aid in their launch. We hope that their positive experience will encourage others in the sector to incorporate open data into their own software as more becomes available.”
