GeoSnapShot, an Australian startup with its U.S. headquarters in Denver, is one of 10 companies selected to receive mentoring and education through Comcast's accelerator program for sports technology.
The Comcast NBCUniversal SportsTech Accelerator kicks off this week in Florida with the goal of helping burgeoning companies like GeoSnapShot land commercial deals in the sports industry. Startup founders will get access to leaders of Comcast's sports brands — NBC Sports, Sky Sports and Comcast Spectator — and they'll have access to Comcast partners, including NASCAR, WWE, the PGA Tour and U.S. Olympic sports organizations.
GeoSnapShot and the nine other startups were chosen from a pool of 920 applicants from 40 countries.
"We are excited to announce we have been selected as one of the high-growth startups for the Comcast SportsTech Program!" GeoSnapShot founder and CEO Andy Edwards posted to LinkedIn on Tuesday. "Follow our journey as we change the game for participants, sports organizations, and fans around the world."
GeoSnapShot developed a media distribution platform, powered by artificial intelligence, that allows users to share and organize photos from an event with no storage limits. Event participants are able to find all of their photos quickly because of the startup's face recognition technology. GeoSnapShot takes a 30% cut of every photo sold, with the rest going to the photographer.
Though the platform is also used for other types of events, sports are the startup's primary focus. Photographers have uploaded photos to the platform from thousands of sporting events across 70 countries. The startup has partnered with USA Boxing, Tough Mudder, US Youth Soccer and Triple Crown Sports, among others.
Last year, GeoSnapShot loaned its platform for use at Denver Startup Week. Participants could use the platform to find themselves among the thousands of photos, and event organizers were able to spot key people in photos to share over social media, Edwards said.
Denver Economic Development & Opportunity selected GeoSnapShot in 2021 to be part of the Denver Global Landing Pad, a business acceleration program for foreign companies that have expanded to the Mile High City. Edwards said in a post that the program was "instrumental in quickly establishing a U.S. base" for the startup.
Through the Comcast accelerator, GeoSnapShot will now receive help refining its product and improving its go-to-market strategies, as well as get instruction from sports tech advisors about fundraising, sales, marketing and branding. The mentors participating in the program are leaders from NBC Sports, NBCUniversal, Sky Sports, NASCAR, WWE and the PGA Tour.
The accelerator will run for six months — twice as long as the 12-week program Comcast hosted in 2021 and 2022. Comcast decided to expand the accelerator this year to help the startups tackle their most complex business challenges, said Jenna Kurath, vice president of startup partnerships at Comcast.
"The new six-month format creates additional space for focused testing and experimentation with a curriculum designed for business refinement while allowing the enterprise-ready startups we've selected to continue serving their existing customers," Kurath said in a statement.
During the introductory week in Florida, startup founders will have meetings with NBC Sports' GOLF division, and they'll get behind-the-scenes tours of technology at Universal Studios Florida and the WWE Athlete Performance Center. They'll also be part of focused sessions at the PGA Tour headquarters and Daytona International Speedway.
