Best Startup
At Best Startup US we track over 1,000,000 US startups and over 3 million people who hold key positions in these companies. We use this directory of startups to highlight top employees, founders and board members we think deserve more appreciation than they are currently getting.
This list showcases the top California based Founder operating in the Sports space. If you think a Founder is missing from this list, feel free to contact our editor on editor@beststartup.us.
The individuals on this list have been included because of exceptional performance in one of the following categories:
- Innovation – Operating as a key part in an extremely innovative business or startup.
- Growth – Operating as a key figure in the growth and upscale of a market leading business or startup.
- Management – Showing exceptional management skills.
- Societal impact – Putting their business on the map for their positive societal or environmental impact.
Our Data – We source our data from OSINT (open source intelligence) and public directories such as Crunchbase, SemRush and many more. The data from these sources should be treated with a degree of caution and verified yourself.
Chad Hurley
Co-Founder and Chairman of GreenPark Sports
Chad Hurley is the Co-Founder & Former CEO of YouTube. In October 2006 he, along with the other founders, sold the company for $1.65 billion to Google. Prior to YouTube he worked in eBay’s PayPal division, where he helped design the original PayPal logo.
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About GreenPark Sports: GreenPark Sports is a social sports gaming developer designed to create a virtual sports environment for sports and eSports fans.
Ken Martin
CEO & Co-Founder of GreenPark Sports
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About GreenPark Sports: GreenPark Sports is a social sports gaming developer designed to create a virtual sports environment for sports and eSports fans.
Stephen Curry
Founder of SC30 Inc.
Stephen Curry’s on and off court legacy is marked by transformation and innovation. With a following of over 13M on twitter and 26M on Instagram, Curry is one of the most influential stars both on and off the basketball court. His nine-year career in the NBA with the Golden State Warriors is marked by many firsts; he was the first person to be named Most Valuable Player by unanimous vote in NBA History and one of a select few to win MVP awards two years in a row. He holds six NBA all-star selections and three NBA Championships. Off the court, he is also an emerging figure in the tech space with direct investments in companies like Pinterest and eSports organization TSM. This past July, Stephen and Ayesha Curry launched the Eat. Learn. Play. Foundation, whose mission is to unlock the potential of every child by ending childhood hunger, ensuring universal access to education, and enabling active lifestyles. The family foundation is dedicated to providing underprivileged children the fundamental resources they need to thrive in life, with an emphasis on the Bay Area and Oakland communities. He is also the founder of the Film & Television company Unanimous Media specializing in Faith, Family and Sports content in tandem with Sony Studios, and is the Executive Producer for ABC’s no. 1 primetime show, Holey Moley.
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About Golden State Warriors, SC30 Inc., Shitqoin: SC30 Inc. is the company responsible for Stephen Curry’s complete off-court business portfolio.
Alex Mather
Founder of The Athletic
Alex Mather is a co-founder of The Athletic.
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About The Athletic: The Athletic is an online media company that specializes in online news publishing for the sports industry.
Adam Hansmann
President & Co-Founder of The Athletic
Adam Hansmann is the co-founder and COO of The Athletic.
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About The Athletic: The Athletic is an online media company that specializes in online news publishing for the sports industry.
Ali Moiz
Founder of VULCUN
Founder at Stonks.
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About Stonks, VULCUN: The largest prize pools in Fantasy eSports
James Yoder
CEO & Founder of Chat Sports
James Yoder is CEO of Chat Sports and founder of Chat Sports Studios. Prior to co-founding Chat Sports, he worked for Verizon Wireless as a Mobile Product Manager. Focusing on Verizon’s Android and iOS products, James has vast experience at the forefront of mobile industry technology. Prior to Verizon, he worked for the college sports giant, Rivals.com. James graduated with a degree in Business Management from the University of Toledo. As an angel investor, James has 4 portfolio exits. All investments to date have been consumer focused.
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About Chat Sports: Chat Sports is a live sports news network for digital platforms
Mike Wadhera
Founder & CEO of Sports Feed
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About Skip Scooters, Sports Feed: Next-generation sports app – fast, friendly & personalized
Craig Hochstadt
Founder & COO of Nextpro
Craig Hochstadt was born in Columbia, Maryland on July 5, 1980. He attended and graduated from the University of Maryland, College Park in 2003 where he majored in communications and also played lacrosse. Professionally, Craig has worked on a number of successful marketing campaigns, projects and entrepreneurial-related roles in sports, music, entertainment, and theatrical movie marketing. A few of his personal interests and hobbies include technology, entrepreneurship, biohacking, meditation, dogs, Apple products, the “Internet of Things”, travel, the Pacific Ocean, and college and professional sports (specifically football, basketball, and lacrosse). Craig is also an avid fan, user and consumer of two special caffeinated beverages: 1. Ceremonial grade matcha green tea. Matcha is a finely ground powder of a specially grown and processed form of green tea. In traditional Chinese and Japanese matcha green tea, a ceremony is centered on the preparation, serving, and drinking of matcha green tea. 2. Bulletproof Coffee – which is a butter-coffee combo that has taken the health community by storm and was created by world-famous biohacker and author of the Bulletproof Diet, Dave Asprey. Today Craig maintains his passion for technology and entrepreneurship. He one day hopes to invent something that will help make the world a better place. Craig and his wife currently reside in Los Angeles, California
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About Nextpro: NextPro creates & produces over 50K games per year across 5 sports, and distribute this content to a large and captive audience.
Nicola Munarini
CEO and Co-Founder of PKRS.AI
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About PKRS.AI: The future of personal coaching. AI powered, human enhanced.
Jesse Zhang
CEO and Founder of Lowkey
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About Camelot.ai, Lowkey, Lowkey: The home for watching and creating short gaming videos
Floyd Arnold
Founder of Full Swing Golf
Floyd Arnold is the Founder of Full Swing Golf, Inc. Mr. Arnold is a Pioneer of Indoor Golf. His impact on the golfing industry continue to grow as the full swing golf simulator expends its reach into the mainstream of both entertainment and golf industry applications. In 1986, marked the year he formed full swing golf and his quest began. After exploring various routes to achieve his goal for a realistic system , he invented and patented an ingenious design of tracking the golf ball in fight after impact with the golf club over a defined period of time. This allowed the participants to not only hit a read golf ball indoors but it also allowed the user to see a real-time visual representation of the entire ball flight exactly as it was happening. His invention is located in many of the finest golf facilities and organizations around the world including the PGA of America and the world golf hall of Fame. There are more than 3000 full swing golf simulators in operatinon around the globle that have been experienced by close to one billion user.
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About Full Swing Golf: Full Swing Golf is the Worldwide Leader in Golf Simulation.
Sohrob Farudi
Chief Executive Officer & Co-Founder of Fan Controlled Football
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About Fan Controlled Football, FCFL, Jealous Devil: Fan Controlled Football is the first fan-run professional sports league.
Bradley Deyo
Co-Founder, Co-Chairman & COO of Mars Reel
Bradley Deyo is a Co-founder and COO at Mars Reel.
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About Mars Reel: Mars Reel is a content and consumer products company focused on high school sports and youth culture.
Paullie Etienne
Founder/COO of Cloud9
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About Cloud9: Cloud9 is a professional multi-game esports organization that is based in the Los Angeles, California area.
Rizwan Virk
Founder & Executive Director of playlabs
Riz Virk is the Founder & Executive Director at Play Labs.
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About 500 Startups, Bayview Labs, BitMovio, Griffin Gaming Partners, MIT $100K Entrepreneurship Competition, playlabs: Play Labs is a new startup incubator/accelerator program for MIT-affiliated startups using playful technologies in any industry.
Tyler Bleszinski
Founder of Vox Media
Tyler is the founder of SB Nation which laid the groundwork for the creation of Vox Media. He served as the CEO of SB Nation for the first four years of its existence. The disruption of traditional sports media started with Bleszinski’s coverage approach and led to massive growth immediately. The young company’s rapid success attracted the attention of investors and future CEO Jim Bankoff. Tyler now functions as SB Nation’s vice president of talent, serving as a mentor, advocate and teacher for the team blogs in the network. He manages the team blog leadership and leads the recruiting, credentialing and editorial planning for our team blogs. He has a keen eye for talent, with many of the current full time sports employees starting as bloggers early on in SB Nation’s history. Tyler started the network when he launched his Oakland Athletics site Athletics Nation in November 2003. The site became the model for how to approach coverage in the new media landscape with an open and distinct bias. He set out with the purpose of raising the level of discourse that existed at the time and empowering fans to embrace their own community on the Web. His approach became the blueprint for the company’s success as he developed a close relationship with A’s general manager Billy Beane as well as owner Lewis Wolff. He remains a driving force behind the team blogs today.
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About SBNation, The Verge, Vox Media: Vox Media is an operator of an online media publishing agency created to influence editorial properties and premium advertising.
Adeel Yang
Co-Founder of Dryvebox
Adeel Yang is the Co-Founder at Dryvebox.
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About Dryvebox, MAGIC Fund, Medumo, Philips, Picmonic: Dryvebox is a mobile golf simulator offering lessons and coaching services.
Michael Rabil
Co-Founder & CEO of Premier Lacrosse League
Mike Rabil is the Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer of the Premier Lacrosse League (PLL). Founded in October 2018, PLL just completed its inaugural season where the league traveled to thirteen major North American cities during a 14-week regular season. Bringing 160 of the world’s best lacrosse players and an exclusive media rights agreement with NBC Sports Group – a first for the sport, PLL has brought the game closer to millions of fans across the country. In his role, Mike is responsible for the long-term vision of the company as well as oversee all day-to-day operations of the league. This past year, Mike has successfully used his lengthy entrepreneur background in silicon valley with his keen sports knowledge to spearhead the launch of PLL. Previously, as the VP of Sales and Partnerships, Mike led revenue and built Funding Circle’s US sales and BD teams from scratch. Mike was on the founding team at Endurance Lending Network, which was acquired by Funding Circle in 2013. In 2012, Mike co-founded Endurance Companies, an investment holding company based in San Francisco, and served as CEO and co-founder of Turnstyle Cycle, now Boston’s largest boutique indoor cycling company. Mike first dipped his toes in entrepreneurial waters in 2010 when he co-founded Endurance Fitness 247, which he manages with David to this day. Mike began his career in consulting at Jones Lang LaSalle, the world’s largest real estate services company. He graduated from Dartmouth College with a BA in Government, where he was captain of the football team. Mike enjoys hiking in Marin County. More than just hiking, he enjoys wrestling the whereabouts of some of Marin’s most prized secret trailheads out of the locals :). When he’s not hiking, you can find Mike at a variety of group exercise classes and practicing his down-dog at Love Story Yoga. He, on occasion, has been known to wield his guitar at Dave Matthews Band sing-a-longs.
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About Premier Lacrosse League, Rabil Ventures: Premier Lacrosse League is a proposed professional lacrosse league.
Jason Trost
CEO & Founder of Smarkets
Jason is the founder and CEO of London-headquartered Smarkets, one of the world’s largest betting exchanges. As a trading platform, Smarkets simplifies peer-to-peer betting on hundreds of markets daily, with a mission to provide the the lowest commission and therefore fairest odds in the world. In a few short years, Jason has engineered Smarkets into one of the fastest-growing companies in Europe that sees more than 200,000 customers trade billions of pounds annually. Prior to co-founding Smarkets, Jason worked in the Global Asset Management division at UBS designing and implementing proprietary software to assist in one of the world’s largest fund of hedge fund trading operations. Jason graduated from Northwestern University and holds a bachelor’s degree in Computer Science.
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About Smarkets: Smarkets simplifies peer-to-peer trading on sporting and political events.
Alex Beckman
Founder & Chief Executive Officer of GameOn Technology
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About Elastic Holdings, GameOn Technology: Our technology powers intelligent chat applications across multiple platforms for some of the world’s largest brands.
Kalin Stanojev
Founder & CPO of GameOn Technology
Founder and CPO of GameOn.
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About GameOn Technology: Our technology powers intelligent chat applications across multiple platforms for some of the world’s largest brands.
Nate Simmons
Founder & COO of GameOn Technology
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About GameOn Technology: Our technology powers intelligent chat applications across multiple platforms for some of the world’s largest brands.
Jay Peterson
Founder and CEO of Matador
Jay Peterson founded Matador in 2013 and in the past two years has produced a wide range of programming, from Lip Sync Battle on Spike and Nail’d It on Oxygen to the HBO documentary Banksy Does New York and A&E’s Country Buck$. Prior to starting Matador, Jay served as the Chief Operating Officer and Executive Vice President of Production and Development at Original Media, an Endemol Company. During his tenure at Original, Jay developed and produced several hit television series, including History’s Swamp People, Spike’s Inkmaster, AMC’s Comic Book Men and Discovery’s Dual Survival. He expanded Original’s portfolio into new categories such as sports (MMA Uncensored Live), talk (The Gayle King Show), music (Unplugged) and live television (Nokia’s Rihanna Live for MTV, VH1 and Palladia), and strengthened the franchises and economics of existing shows such as Storm Chasers, LA Ink and The Rachel Zoe Project. Before joining Original, Jay was the President of K2 Pictures, where he served as Executive Producer on numerous projects, including the Showtime feature documentary Same Sex America, the daily ESPN series Classic Now and the Kennedy Center’s 9/11 memorial special, Concert for America (NBC).
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About Matador: Matador is a full-service content production company with offices in New York and Los Angeles.
Mark Wan
Co-Founder & Partner of Causeway Media Partners
Mark Wan is the Co-Founder & Partner at Causeway Media Partners.
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About Causeway Media Partners, Three Arch Partners: Causeway Media Partners is an investment fund focused on sports media, entertainment, and related companies.
Andrew Miller
Founder & CEO of NRG eSports
Andy Miller is the Founder & CEO at NRG Esports.
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About 1Energy Systems, Internet Real Estate Group, NRG eSports, NRG eSports, NRG eSports, Sacramento Kings, Sacramento Kings: NRG eSports is looking to set precedence in the industry of eSports.
Johannes Waldstein
Founder & CEO of FanAI
Johannes Waldstein is the Founder & CEO at FanAI Inc.
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About FanAI: FanAI is an AI-driven Audience Monetization platform focusing first on esports.
Wicks Walker
Co-Founder of W4
Adam Wicks Walke has founded numerous companies in the internet and media sectors, landing four times among the top 100 of the Inc. 500 list of fastest growing private companies in the U.S, as well as the fastest growing lists of the Los Angeles Business Journal and the Deloitte Technology Fast 50. He plays the role of strategist and deal maker in each company, and has closed more than a dozen corporate finance transactions securing more than $100 million. Before W4, he was a partner in Hydra, which was named the fastest growing internet company in Los Angeles in 2007 while under the management team now running W4. Before exiting Hydra, he sold a minority interest in the company for $30 million. Wicks also has an independent record label and invests in numerous media, technology and entertainment projects. He also serves on the Board of the Downtown LA Art Walk, a monthly art event that draws more than 10,000 people.
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About Division Films, W4: W4 provides business process management solutions through an expansive network of publishers.
Stephen Smith
Co-Founder & CEO of Kitman Labs
Stephen is co founder of Kitman Labs, the worlds most advanced athlete management platform. Stephen holds a Higher Diploma in Human Physiology and Health Science, a BSc (Hons) in Sports & Exercise Rehabilitation and an MSc in Football Rehabilitation. He worked with Leinster Rugby as a Sports Injury Rehabilitation Coach within the Strength & Conditioning Department between 2008-2014. Stephen founded Kitman Labs in 2012 and now lives in Palo Alto, CA where he focuses on expanding Kitman Labs in elite US sports. His areas of expertise include injury prevention, rehabilitation and analytics and he has a strong interest in the use of technology and emerging trends in sport science to further enhance sport science and medicine.
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About Kitman Labs: Kitman Labs is a sports analytics platform that generates insights to help professional athletes perform better.
Warren Packard
Co-Founder & CEO of Thuuz Sports
Warren Packard is the Founder and CEO of Thuuz Sports, a B2B business that has built a real-time artificial intelligence platform that drives greater tune-in, monetization, and overall entertainment value for the sports and media industries. Among the services that Thuuz enables are real-time, personalized clips, highlights, and shows, as well as personalized excitement ratings, dynamic headlines, and real-time tune-in alerts for live events. The power of one-to-one personalization yields significant lift in engagement and powers multiple business models that produce significantly more revenue than traditional broadcast and “post and pray” models. Prior to starting Thuuz, Warren was a Managing Director of Draper Fisher Jurvetson where he led the firm’s investments in over two dozen companies, leading to seventeen acquisitions and three IPOs, including SeaMicro (NASDAQ: AMD), Ooma (NYSE: OOMA), CastTV (NYSE: NLSN), Feedburner (NASDAQ: GOOGL), Xfire (NASDAQ: VIA), Digital Impact (NASDAQ: ACXM), and Fogdog Sports (NASDAQ: EBAY). Prior to joining DFJ, Warren co-founded Angara Database Systems, a main memory relational database company, which was acquired by Personify. Prior to co-founding Angara, he was an Associate at Institutional Venture Partners, investing in early-stage technology companies. Before IVP, Warren was a Senior Principal Engineer at Baxter International. Warren is a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Stanford University and holds a BS and MS in Mechanical Engineering: Smart Product Design. He received his MBA from the Stanford Graduate School of Business where he was an Arjay Miller Scholar.
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About Draper Athena, Threshold, Thuuz Sports: Thuuz sells a revolutionary Personalized Sports Entertainment platform enabling the Ultimate Sports Guide and Automated Highlight Reels
Kasian Franks
Investor, Co-Founder & CSO of Pimovi
Kasian Franks is currently Founder and CEO of Mimvi, Inc. Located in San Francisco, California, Mimvi is a search engine and recommendation technology company for Mobile Apps, Mobile Content and Mobile Products.
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About Pimovi, Vectorspace: VIP backstage pass to exclusive videos
Sumit Gupta
Co-Founder & CEO of Boom.tv
Sumit Gupta is an Advisor at Boom Fantasy and Founder & CEO at Boom.tv. He is a 3x Entrepreneur (multiple exits), Angel Investor and Mentor. Founded 3 companies. Invested in 50+ startups including Discord, G2 eSports, BlockChain Capital, Blockstream, Blockcypher, Filecoin, Wag, Classpass, OpenDoor, HoneyBook, Managed-by-Q, Dishcraft Robotics. Mr. Gupta also runs Piazza eSports Ventures with pa articular focus on investments and incubating startups Infusing tech into eSports and Game Streaming. Investments include Discord, Vulcun/StreamLabs, BitKraft, G2 Esports. Startup Portfolio includes DrDisRespect stream team, Boom.tv, Rolocule Games, Boom Fantasy Previously, He served as a Founder & CEO of Bash Gaming, took the mobile gaming company to annual revenue of $75M, profitable and sold it to GSN for $170M. Previously as founder CEO of BitRhymes Apps, top 10 app developers in social space. Before that, I was part of founding team at Business Signatures that was sold to Entrust for $55M
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About afkVR, Boom.tv: BoomTV is an Esports entertainment platform that provides tools to automate score tracking, streaming, and generating event hubs.
Michael Horvath
Co-Founder & CEO of Strava
Michael Horvath is the Co-Founder and CEO of Strava. He earned his degree at Harvard University.
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About Strava: Strava is an online network where runners and cyclists can record their activities, compare performance, and compete with their community.
Mark Gainey
Co-Founder & Executive Chairman of Strava
Mark Gainey is the Co-Founder and Executive Chairman at Strava.
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About AlterG, Strava: Strava is an online network where runners and cyclists can record their activities, compare performance, and compete with their community.
Earvin Johnson
Founder & CEO of Magic Johnson Enterprises
Earvin “Magic” Johnson has become the most powerful African-American businessman in the world. He is a Major League Baseball owner, an NBA Legend, a 2-Time Hall of Famer, an Entrepreneur, a Philanthropist and a Motivational Speaker. The business mogul has successfully parlayed his skills and tenacity on the court into the business world, propelling his company to the status of #1 Brand in Urban America. He is Chairman and CEO of Magic Johnson Enterprises (MJE), which provides high quality products and services that focus primarily on ethnically diverse and underserved urban communities through strategic alliances, investments, consulting and endorsements. The conglomerate is comprised of multiple business entities and partnerships that include Canyon Johnson, a $1 billion dollar real estate fund, Yucaipa Johnson, a $500 million dollar private equity fund, ASPIRE, a new African-American television network, SodexoMAGIC, Magic Airport Holdings, Inner City Broadcasting Corporation, Magic Johnson Bridgescape Academies, and Vibe Holdings, LLC – Johnson is the Chairman of the multi-cultural media company that houses the Vibe, Uptown, and Soul Train brands. Most noted for his unprecedented Starbucks partnership, which served as the catalyst for redevelopment in urban communities and is literally the blueprint for Corporate America’s engagement and success with urban consumers. In 2010, the savvy businessman divested his Starbucks and Los Angeles Lakers shares in excess $100 million dollars. However, he will continue to assist Starbucks with their community development initiatives and will remain Vice President of the Los Angeles Lakers. Johnson has also teamed up with Tim Leiweke of AEG in an effort to build a new stadium and bring an NFL team back to Los Angeles as well as thousands of jobs to the city. The story of Johnson and Larry Bird’s inspiring friendship and rivalry was presented in a theater adaptation of Magic & Bird on Broadway in April 2012. Johnson also serves as Chairman and Founder of the Magic Johnson Foundation, where his unwavering commitment to transform Urban America continues through HIV/AIDS Awareness & Prevention Programs, Community Empowerment Centers, and the Taylor Michaels Scholarship Program. Celebrating over 20 years of success, the Magic Johnson Foundation has become one of the most recognizable philanthropic organizations around the world.
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About JLC Infrastructure, Magic Johnson Enterprises, Magic Johnson Foundation: Magic Johnson Enterprises is a company owned by retired NBA Hall of Fame legend Magic Johnson.
Adil Virani
Co-Founder of Blitz App
Adil Virani is the Co-Founder at Blitz.
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About Blitz App: Your personal gaming coach for League of Legends, Valorant, CSGO, Fortnite and more— powered by AI and built with professional players.
Andy Dinh
Co-Founder and CEO of Blitz App
Andy Dinh is the founder and CEO at Blitz App.
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About Blitz App, Team SoloMid: Your personal gaming coach for League of Legends, Valorant, CSGO, Fortnite and more— powered by AI and built with professional players.
Mike Melby
Co-Founder and Co-CEO of FITLAB
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About ELECTRIC, FITLAB, FITLAB, FITLAB, Mayweather Boxing & Fitness, XPT: FitLab powers experiences that inspire you to move.
Eli Dawson
Co-Founder and CEO of StatMuse
Co-Founder, CEO at StatMuse.
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About StatMuse: StatMuse is a sports statistics website that allows users to search for players and view customizable statistics.
Mark Fidelman
Founder & CEO of Raynforest
Mr. Fidelman is currently eVP of Sales at MindTouch the leading open source collaborative networking company. He was a former eVP of Sales at TASER (Nasdaq: TASR). He spent 6 years at A.T. Kearney as a Director.
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About Fanatics Media, Raynforest: Raynforest provides solutions that enable brands to connect with influential people to promote their products, services or causes.
Dhananja Jayalath
Founder of Athos
University of Waterloo graduate Dhananja (DJ) Jayalath honed his technical breadth from mechanical to electrical to software engineering as he finished his Electrical Engineering degree. After graduating in 2012 and turning down a lucrative position at Apple, DJ started work on a crazy idea he was already working on – that crazy idea is now called Athos! Like many tech pioneers of his generation, DJ started the development of Athos between classes. Because he couldn’t afford a pricey trainer and was frustrated with the hassle of current training technology, he sought to create a product that could quickly answer his all of his training questions. What began as a passion for making smarter better connected prosthetics turned into a revolutionary wearable EMG fitness technology. The research DJ collected for prosthetics innovations paired with his sewing and engineering skills crossed over perfectly as he sought to seamlessly integrate bulky EMG models, previously limited to Olympian and professional athletes, into affordable, weightless training apparel. DJ reengineered lab sized technology and condensed it to the size of a credit card and literally built it into interchangeable garments. Since co-founding Athos in the summer of 2012, DJ has been working on developing the product and driving the vision for a healthier lifestyle through technology.
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About Athos: The Athos mission is to help athletes train more effectively and reach their performance goals faster.
Chris Wiebe
CTO & Co-Founder of Athos
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About Athos: The Athos mission is to help athletes train more effectively and reach their performance goals faster.
Robert Smithson
Co-Founder of CrowdScores
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About CrowdScores, Genius Sports, Just Auto Insurance, PythonAnywhere: CrowdScores is a live football scores application that features quick updates from leagues and competitions around the world.
Tuan Ma
Founder & CEO of PlayersOnly
A entrepreneur, computer scientist and Founder of PlayersOnly. He holds a M.S. in Computer Science from DePaul University, and a M.B.A. from Durham University (UK).
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About PlayersOnly: PlayersOnly is a sports social network focused on athletes.
Ishaan Sutaria
Co-Founder, Co-CEO of Wave Sports + Entertainment
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About Wave Sports + Entertainment: Wave Sports + Entertainment is a media company built for the next generation of digital superfans.
Carter Russ
Founder & CEO of Champions Round
I am an entrepreneur with a passion for creating exceptional products and building fantastic working cultures. I am the founder and CEO at Champions Round. I’m interested by sports tech, cryptocurrencies and blockchain, physics, investing, art and music, and pretty much anything nerdy or cool under the sun.
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About Champions Round: Fantasy & sports betting operator offering hyper casual skill based contests.
Jack Moses
Co-Founder & CEO of LevelChanger
Jack Moses is a tech entrepreneur and angel investor. He is the Co-Founder and VP Marketing of Grand Junction Networks (the pioneer of “Fast Ethernet”), which was acquired by Cisco in 1995 for $348 million. Prior to leading Grand Junction Network’s marketing efforts, Jack worked as a Marketing Executive at 3Com where he oversaw product and marketing for the company’s core computer networking and ethernet technologies. Jack attended Yale University for his undergraduate studies, where he received his B.S. in Economics, and Stanford’s Graduate School of Business (GSB), where he received his MBA in Marketing.
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About LevelChanger: Real-time scoring, stats, and analytics for wrestling teams.
Chip Pankow
Founder/COO of Red Bull Global Rallycross
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About Red Bull Global Rallycross: Red Bull Global Rallycross combines the best aspects of circuit racing, off-road racing, and rally competition to deliver intense
Helene Guillaume
Founder & CEO of WILD.AI
“|| Live Extremes || WILD.AI enables women to reach their race objective with our app-based AI coach. Cycle after cycle, we help you understand your body, what you feel means, what works best for you, and finally optimise the decisions you take for your body to reach your peak performance. Until now, female athletes have relied on training protocols, injury guidelines and nutrition plans based on research conducted with men – limiting females to reach their full potential, as they struggle to take advantage of their natural cycles. Periods are the last taboo in sports, we are breaking it. We are operating in a widely untapped and underserved $10bn market, at the crossway of fitness and female tracking. We are starting with a laser focus on the 1.5mn US female triathletes. From this initial engaged and quantified-self pool, we’ll be able to help a wider female population with a specific challenge to tackle (including IBS, fertility) applying our learnings and research. Our team of AI Ph.D and athletes (100km ultra-marathons, triathlons, ice swimming) is redefining the future of female health. == I love extremes – in every sense of the word – I’m an avid endurance racer, having done 100km Ultra Trails, half ironman, ice swimmer and cross-continental swimmer. I am is also the co-founder of PeakAI.org, a community of AI researchers and Founders and I’m a very active humanist, helping men reach equality.”
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About Entrepreneur First, WILD.AI: WILD.AI is building a knowledge base of female datasets, across all ages, life stages, and ethnicity.
Grey Albright
Co-Founder – Lead Writer/Editor of Razzball LLC
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About Razzball LLC: Fantasy Sports Community and Daily Projections
Stephen A. Murphy
Co-Founder & CEO of Boom Entertainment
Stephen A. Murphy is the Co-Founder and CEO at Boom Fantasy. He operates the popular NBC Sports Predictor gaming platform and the award-winning Boom Fantasy real-money platform. Mr. Murphy was the Vice President, Business Development at High 5 Games and Managing Editor of Card Player Media. Stephen graduated from Loyola Marymount University with a bachelor of arts in Political Science.
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About Boom Entertainment: Boom Entertainment is building the future of online gaming technology. We power casinos, sportsbooks, media companies, sports leagues & more
Peter Guber
Co-Executive Chairman & Co-Founder of aXiomatic
Peter Guber is the Chairman & CEO at Mandalay Entertainment Group .
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About aXiomatic, Golden State Warriors, Los Angeles Dodgers, Los Angeles Football Club (LAFC), Mandalay Entertainment, University of California, Los Angeles: AXiomatic powers unforgettable eSports experiences through sports and entertainment expertise.
Bruce Stein
Co-Founder ,CEO ,Board Member of aXiomatic & Board member Team Liquid of aXiomatic
Bruce Stein is the Co-Founder ,CEO ,Board Member of aXiomatic & Board member Team Liquid at aXiomatic.
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About aXiomatic, Westridge Consulting: AXiomatic powers unforgettable eSports experiences through sports and entertainment expertise.
Sam Osman
Founder & CEO of Playas Play
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About Playas Play, SocialVenu: Playas Play is a new mobile app that rewards sports fans for doing what they love — betting and talking trash.
Greg Raifman
Founder & CEO of Momentum Sports Group
As President of Rubicon Project, Greg manages the day-to-day operations of the company. Greg, who reports directly to CEO Frank Addante, recently served as the Executive Chairman of video ad exchange and real time bidding company LiveRail, Inc. Prior to LiveRail, Greg was Founder, Chairman and CEO of Dragon Media Online and also founded and served as the Chairman, CEO and President of Mediaplex, Inc. Under his watch, Mediaplex developed from inception to a publicly traded global advertising technology company before merging with ValueClick in October 2001. Mediaplex developed many of the initial ad serving technologies for the advertising space that are still used today, including adXML and mobile java objects [MOJO]. Greg is also Founder, Chairman & CEO for Momentum Sports Group, LLC, which owns and operates the UnitedHealthcare Pro Cycling Team, the #1 professional cycling team in the United States for most of the past decade. Greg began his career as an attorney, specializing in mergers and acquisitions and corporate financings. “He” has “also” been an investor, advisor, and board member to many emerging stage and growth companies. Greg has appeared on CNN, CNBC, FNN and ABC News, was featured in a cover story in Fortune Magazine, The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal, and has presented before numerous leading Wall Street investment institutions. He has lectured and written extensively about entrepreneurship, corporate finance, and technology for companies and educational institutions such Johnson & Johnson, The Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania, The Haas School of Business at the University of California, The University of Michigan, and the Georgetown University Law School. Greg received a J.D. from the Georgetown University Law Center and an A.B. from the University of Michigan.
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About Momentum Sports Group: Momentum Sports Group, LLC manages one of the most successful professional Cycling Teams.
Tony Hawk
Founder, CEO of Birdhouse Skateboards
Tony has won numerous awards, including Make-A-Wish’s Favorite Male Athlete, Teen Choice Awards’ Choice Male Athlete and Nickelodeon’s Kid’s Choice Awards’ Favorite Male Athlete, beating out such sports icons as Shaquille O’Neal, Tiger Woods, and Kobe Bryant. From video games to skateboards to online media to clothing to world tours, Tony has dominated the Action Sports market with his laid-back style. He is the most recognized Action Sports figure in the world and, according to some marketing surveys, one of the most recognizable athlete of any kind in the United States. Tony regularly appears on television and in films, and hosts a weekly show on Sirius XM. His autobiography, HAWK—Occupation: Skateboarder was a New York Times bestseller and is currently available in paperback. In 2010, Wiley Publishing released How Did I Get Here? The Ascent of an Unlikely CEO. As his income reached a level he never could have imagined, Tony made an effort to give back to the subculture that has given him so much. His Tony Hawk Foundation has donated over $4 million to 525 skatepark projects throughout the United States. The foundation helps finance public skateparks in low-income areas, providing a safe place to skate and helping young skaters from Marathon, Florida, to Sitka, Alaska, build their self-confidence. Skateparks that received financial assistance from the Tony Hawk Foundation currently serve more than 3 million young Americans annually.
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About Birdhouse Skateboards: Birdhouse Skateboards is a skateboard company.
Robert Krakoff
President & Founder of MIndFX Science Inc
Robert Krakoff is a President & Founder at MindFX Science Inc.He is also President Emeritus & Founder at Razer. Mr. Krakoff plays the role of brand ambassador and can often be found at global gaming events worldwide. Apart from playing World of Warcraft way too much, he also enjoys writing and a good game of tennis.
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About MIndFX Science Inc, Razer, Razer: MIndFX Science Inc is provides supplements to athletes,computer gamers,professional men and women and college students.
Josh Payne
Co-Founder & CINO of Autograph
Josh Payne is currently co-founder and CINO of Autograph, an NFT company. Previously, he was co-founder and COO of AccessBell (acquired by Tata Group), a telemedicine/virtual meeting company, and was the founder and director of the Stanford COVID-19 Response Innovation Lab. He also helped start Marlin Protocol ($POND) in 2018, previously a decentralized content delivery network. Josh has filed over ten patents with IBM Research in the areas of deep learning, digital identity/web3, and information security. He has also published several peer-reviewed articles in deep learning, quantum computing, blockchain, IoT, and computer security in journals and venues such as Nature Communications, NeurIPS, and IEEE.
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About AccessBell, Autograph: Autograph is an NFT platform that brings together the iconic brands in sports and culture to create unique digital collections.
Kristoph Oedman
Co-Founder and COO of ProGuides
Kristoph Oedman is the co-founder and COO of ProGuides.
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About ProGuides: ProGuides is an esports training platform where millions of committed gamers get better.
Sam Wang
Founder & CEO of ProGuides
Founder & CEO of ProGuides.
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About ProGuides: ProGuides is an esports training platform where millions of committed gamers get better.
Ari Evans
Founder & CEO of Maestro Interactive Inc
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About Maestro Interactive Inc: Maestro provides a white label platform for enterprise live streamers to own, engage, and monetize their audiences.
Robin Han
Founder & CEO of Zepp
Han, an assistant professor at the University of Georgia, was a student at Peking University when the impact of the internet was first felt in broader society. But the vibrant discussions the internet initially spurred would prove too much for the ruling Communist Party which, over time, has become more sophisticated in reasserting control over information.
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About melo, Zepp: Zepp provides wearable sports technology products for baseball, golf, and tennis players.
Evan Vandenberg
Co-Founder & CEO of Dibbs
Evan Vandenberg is the Co-Founder & CEO at Dibbs.
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About Dibbs: Dibbs is a trade and collects in the only real-time, 24-7 fractional card market.
Bill Simmons
CEO and Founder of The Ringer
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About The Ringer: The Ringer is a digital platform that covers pop culture, technology, and sports.
Paul Lee
Co-Founder & CEO of Tackl
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About Tackl: Find and compare the best athletic products
Patrick Lu
Co-Founder and CEO of Playfull
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About Playfull: Playfull is a rewards platform for gamers and their mission is to make play more fulfilling
Alex Hesselgrave
Co-Founder and CTO of Playfull
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About Playfull: Playfull is a rewards platform for gamers and their mission is to make play more fulfilling
Zhuping Hu
Co-Founder, iOS Developer of Playfull
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About Playfull: Playfull is a rewards platform for gamers and their mission is to make play more fulfilling
Swupnil Sahai
Co-Founder and CEO of SwingVision
Swupnil Sahai is the Co-Founder and CEO at SwingVision.
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About SwingVision: Mobile A.I. Shot Tracking, Video Analysis & Officiating
Richard Hsu
Co-Founder and CTO of SwingVision
Richard Hsu is the Founder and CTO at SwingVision.
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About SwingVision: Mobile A.I. Shot Tracking, Video Analysis & Officiating
Aaron Hawkey
Co-Founder of BallerTV
Aaron Hawkey is the Co-Founder at BallerTV.
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About BallerTV: Live video, replays & highlights from the nation’s top amateur sports.
Robert Angarita
Co-Founder and Co-CEO of BallerTV
Robert Angarita is a co-founder of BALLER, a recreational sports startup. He also co-founded Chegg Inc., Cramster.com, Acero Solutions, and Intramurals.com. Angarita is a graduate from the [University of Southern California](https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/university-of-southern-california).
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About BallerTV: Live video, replays & highlights from the nation’s top amateur sports.
Bill Banta
Co-Founder & CEO of CENTR Camera
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About CENTR Camera: Panoramic video camera that fits in the palm of your hand.
Andrew Paradise
CEO & Founder of Skillz
Andrew Paradise founded Skillz Inc. in 2012 and serves as its Chief Executive Officer. Prior to Skillz, Mr. Paradise was the Founder and Chief Executive Officer of AisleBuyer LLC, the first mobile self-checkout company that was acquired by Intuit and is now Intuit GoPayment. Prior to AisleBuyer, he served as Chief Executive Officer of Double Picture LLC, a web 2.0 digital media and advertising company. Before his career as a technology entrepreneur, Andrew worked in private equity and venture capital investing for Fort Washington Capital Partners and The Watermill Group.
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About Skillz: Skillz is a marketplace platform for competition-based mobile games.
B.J. Novak
Co-Founder of The List App
B.J. Novak is perhaps best known for his work on NBC’s Emmy Award-winning comedy series The Office as an actor, and executive producer. He is also known for his work as a standup comedian and his performances in films such as Quentin Tarantino’s Inglourious Basterds and Disney’s Saving Mr. Banks. He will next appear in The Founder alongside Michael Keaton. Novak’s debut collection of short stories, One More Thing: Stories and Other Stories, was an immediate New York Times Best Seller and received rave reviews. His children’s book, The Book With No Pictures, is a #1 New York Times Best Seller with over a million copies in print and is currently sold on international bookshelves in 24 additional languages. Novak’s stories have been published in The New Yorker and featured on This American Life. He is also the co-founder and chairman of The List App, which launched in October 2015 and can be found at http://li.st.
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About The List App: The List App is a new way to create and discover lists about anything and everything.
John Cioe
Co-Founder & CEO of Rivals Media
John Cioe is the Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer at Rivals Media. He also founded INOV8 Media in 2014.
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About INOV8 Media, Rivals Media: Rivals Media is a fan engagement platform for live sports and entertainment events.
David Lee
Co-Founder and CEO of HomeCourt
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About HomeCourt: HomeCourt is an interactive basketball app that acts as a personal skills trainer for basketball players.
Philip Lam
Co-Founder of HomeCourt
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About HomeCourt: HomeCourt is an interactive basketball app that acts as a personal skills trainer for basketball players.
Sukemasa Kabayama
CEO and Co-Founder of Uplift Labs
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About Uplift Labs: Uplift Labs digitizes human movement to improve athletic performance while mitigating injuries for in-person and live remote training.
Jonathan Wills
CTO and Co-Founder of Uplift Labs
CEO, Co-Founder of Lumific.
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About Lumific, Uplift Labs: Uplift Labs digitizes human movement to improve athletic performance while mitigating injuries for in-person and live remote training.
Nathan Ramasarma
Founder & CEO of formsense
Tech. entrepreneur & storyteller.
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About ArcSecond, Inc., formsense: formsense reduces injuries, maximizes performance and accelerates recovery for professional sports teams and their athletes.
Andrew Powell
Co-Founder & Chief Executive Officer of Learn to Win
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About Crocodile Gold, Learn to Win: Learn to Win is a high performance micro learning training program for the most demanding situations.
Sasha Seymore
Co-Founder & Chief Operating Officer of Learn to Win
Sasha Seymore is the co-founder of Crocodile Gold.
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About Crocodile Gold, Learn to Win: Learn to Win is a high performance micro learning training program for the most demanding situations.
Barry Sandrew
Co-Founder & Chairman of Arival
Barry Sandrew, Ph.D., after leaving his position as staff neuroscientist at Harvard and Mass General Hospital, invented the first all-digital technology and process for colorizing black and white feature films. He subsequently founded American Film Technologies and produced colorized films for Fox Home Entertainment, Universal Pictures, Paramount, Sony, Japan’s Tsuburaya, BBC and several other major global media and distribution companies. He founded Legend Films in 2000 and after being introduced to digital 3D in 2007, Dr. Sandrew created a conversion process and pipeline that eventually became the gold standard of 3D conversion, an accomplishment that stands today. In 2010, following the release of Alice in Wonderland, he changed the name of Legend Films to Legend3D, in order for the company to focus entirely on the stereoscopic conversion of feature films and commercials. Learn more about how Legend3D has become today’s highest-quality producer of 3D conversion in the industry and a key innovator in 3D conversion technology here. To learn more about Dr. Sandrew’s reflections on the growth of 3D,
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About Arival: Arival technology brings your fans into the game like never before, using augmented reality to visualize real-time player data.
Matt Pangborn
Co-Founder & CEO of Bunker Mode
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About Bunker Mode: Bunker Mode designs and develops sports gaming applications for mobile phones.
Jason Koo
Founder of Coach Labs Inc.
Jason Koo, founder of Coach Labs, Inc., is a serial entrepreneur and inventor of the KooClip, sunglass visor clip, and co-inventor of the SnapCap, two-piece golf ferrules. He has 20 years of experience as an inventor and product developer that spans retail, promotional products, electronics for sports, and technology. He has created global brands through mass-market with Sunglass Hut, Walmart, Target, CVS, and Best Buy to name a few. As a “scratch” golfer, Jason Koo blended his passions for golf and innovation to create the DuoTrac.
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About Coach Labs Inc.: Coach Labs, Inc. empowers players and coaches to increase performance through professional and highly accurate integrated technology.
Josh Bocanegra
CEO / Co Founder of Persona Technologies
Josh Bocanegra is a serial entrepreneur, digital marketer and software developer. His work has been featured in Forbes, TIME, TechCrunch, Bloomberg, Popular Science and many more. In 2010, he launched Beats4Real, an online music site that offered music production to independent music artists worldwide for a monthly subscription. The company was deemed the “Netflix of music production”. He eventually sold the company for an undisclosed amount and went on to pursue a new venture. In 2013, he launched LoveRoom, a social networking site as a social experiment. The company quickly gained mass media attention and eventually lead to the development of a reality TV show based on the sites concept. The show is currently being developed and set to premier on the BET network. In 2015, he launched Humai, a biotech company with a mission to extend the human lifespan with the use of artificial intelligence, bionics and cryonics technology. The company gained worldwide media attention for it’s 30 year goal and is currently being run by it’s head of engineering. in 2016, he launched Persona, a chatbot / artificial intelligence company focused on building chatbots for public figures. Shortly after, Christina Milian joined the company as co-founder to help fulfill the company mission. Persona is the first chatbot company in Los Angeles and Christina Milian has the first celebrity chatbots on the Facebook Messenger platform.
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About Persona Technologies: We bring fans closer to their heroes.
Matthew Gunnin
CEO/Founder of Esports One
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About Esports One, Esportspedia: Esports One is the first real-time fantasy platform that makes watching esports competitive.
Jeb Terry
Co-Founder and CEO of Gridiron Grunts
Jeb Terry is CEO & Co-founder of Cosm company.
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About Cosm, Gridiron Grunts, Unblockable: Gridiron Grunts is an iOS application that allows NFL athletes and fans to create, manage, and listen to audio grunts.
Taylor Bloom
Co-Founder & CEO of SportTechie
Taylor resides in Los Angeles where he graduated from UCLA and started his career working at startups and major corporations in the sports industry. He joined SportTechie in March 2012 and soon after took over the daily operations of the company after he discovered his passion for building a media company that is devoted to the sports technology space. He eats, sleeps and breathes SportTechie. Contact him with content and growth ideas.
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About SPORTS TECH TOKYO, SportTechie, Techstars: SportTechie is the leading information destination for sports technology news and content.
Eric Glader
Co-Founder, CEO of PowerDot
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About PowerDot: PowerDot offers access to cutting-edge health and wellness technology from the comfort of your home.
Matt Till
Co-Founder of OluKai
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About OluKai: OluKai manufactures products for the ocean lifestyle, such as waterproof leather sandals, shoes, and boots.
Gaurav Aggarwal
Co-Founder of Sleek
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About Google, Sleek: Priority Lane, with one line of code >
David Wolfe
Founder, CEO of Olivers
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About Olivers: Olives makes premium athletic essentials for men.
Bogdan Suchyk
Founder of Mobalytics
eSports enthusiast. User Onboarding (UO) evangelist. Passionate about UX design, growth hacking, and gaming. Founder at @MobalyticsHQ and @MyTipsCo.
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About Mobalytics, myTips: Mobalytics is an eSports company that creates a robust way for competitive gamers to analyze and improve their performance.
Kosta Jordanov
Co – Founder & CEO of FITE
Serial entrepreneur – built several software companies from scratch. Ran a professional services company in the mobile software space for customers such as IBM, Samsung, Procter & Gamble and Ogilvy. Previously: CTO of TTS; Software Engineer at IBM. Education: Technical University of Sofia (Computer Science); UNWE (Macroeconomics). Two exits, one IPO at BSE.
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About FITE: FITE is a direct-to-consumer digital live sports streaming service for sports and entertainment.
Stefan Lilov
VP Product & Co-Founder of FITE
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About FITE: FITE is a direct-to-consumer digital live sports streaming service for sports and entertainment.
Weixi Yen
Co-Founder of Sleeper
Weixi Yen is the Co-Founder at Sleeper.
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About Sleeper: Sleeper is a sports platform intended for fantasy leagues and eSports.
Ken Wang
Co-Founder of Sleeper
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About Sleeper: Sleeper is a sports platform intended for fantasy leagues and eSports.
Nan Wang
Co-Founder & CEO of Sleeper
Co-Founder at Blitz Studios.
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About Sleeper: Sleeper is a sports platform intended for fantasy leagues and eSports.
Sebastien Delvaux
Co-Founder and COO of Evolved
Co-Founder & COO of Evolved Talent Agency, the world’s largest esports talent agency. Expert in Digital Talent Management, Brand Development and Digital Marketing.
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About Evolved: Esports Consulting Group & Talent Agency for Esports Professionals & Digital Content Creators.
