After speaking with many companies across Europe and the Americas, I decided to focus on two sports tech firms in Eastern Asia.
FastPong: South Korea-based and founded by Amir Kamandi and Dr. Kie Brooks. Built on the premise of combining cognitive improvement with table tennis performance.
Run.Edge: Japan-based with a focus on baseball analytics.
Both South Korea and Japan are huge markets for sports and these companies are capitalising on this potential. As with many other companies they do continue to find innovative use cases for their offerings.
FASTPONG: visual stimulation based interactive training in Table Tennis
A hardware (grid setup) and software (real time tracking and analytics app) based table tennis training system. The system itself consists of 8 LED-lit grids which serve two purposes: 1) to show the target by lighting up and 2) to show if the target was hit. Different challenges can be configured in the app to train as per the players requirements.
There could be clear applications for the product in healthcare particularly with relation to people with Parkinson’s and neuro-connectivity issues. In addition, FastPong is targeting the entertainment space as many of the clients respond more to the visual stimulation which goes very well with arcades and gaming hubs. This also gives them a much broader audience against just those looking at improving performance.
Run.Edge - Video analytics with custom tagging for baseball and beyond
Run.Edge works with 80% of the teams in Japan’s 1st division professional baseball league – the NPB. The NPB is considered by most to be the second largest baseball league globally after the MLB in America. In fact, Run.Edge also works with 10 MLB teams.
Baseball is a stats heavy sports but Run.Edge’s premise is built on the belief that data analysis is not enough for performance improvement and has limited impact on coaching. Their core competency is incorporating contextual information in the video feeds. By allowing moments in the game to be tagged. The contextual data, in turn, allows for a far more meaningful and clear communication between players and the coaches. This truly is Run.Edge’s USP.
They have also created a similar offering – FL-UX – for other sports like football, futsal, basketball and rugby. They are working with 200 clubs (professional and amateur) across Japan and in more than 10 countries (with professional and amateur football clubs) for the same.
But it just doesn’t end with sports. Run.Edge is also looking to revolutionise online education and meetings via the soon to be launched product Recoruku. Their customised tagging allows key moments of lectures and meetings to be identified with context.
In conclusion, FastPong and Run.Edge are two innovative sports tech companies in Eastern Asia that are making significant strides in the industry. Their success also demonstrates the potential of the Asian sports market.
Sounds amazing!
Yes, some truly amazing stuff that they are doing.