Editor's note: In our 2023 Startups to Watch feature, the Silicon Valley Business Journal and San Francisco Business Times present startups and founders doing unique things in the Bay Area. Fizz is one of 15 we profiled this year — to read more about our mission and the other startups we're featuring, click here.
By fundraising standards, while the $8.5 million Uplift Labs has raised isn't huge, it is respectable. What does catch the eye are the investors behind that amount: current and former pro basketball, football and volleyball, Softbank Group Corp.'s artificial intelligence incubator Deepcore and Stadia Ventures. Plus, the fitness-focused company has a pedigreed founding team.
CEO Sukemasa Kabayama was president of Tesla Motors Japan; CTO Jonathan Wills was founder and CEO of Lumific, which GoPro acquired; and Rahul Rajan, its chief AI officer, has more than eight years experience building AI systems that track peoples' movements. Taken together, Uplift Labs has the makings for a right idea, right time, right team triple threat.
What was the “aha” moment behind your startup? Sukemasa Kabayama: I used to be a CrossFit junkie and as often as I worked out, I also got injured quite often. Whether it was lower back or rotary cuff related, I kept thinking there's got to be an easier way to track your form so you know you are exercising correctly. When I discussed this literal pain point with my two co-founders, Jonathan and Rahul, they agreed that the moment was ripe leveraging computer vision running on ubiquitous smartphones to accurately track and analyze biomechanics for the masses.
Describe what Uplift Labs does? We use smartphones to track how your body moves and provide insights to help improve your performance and health.
- Founded: 2017
- Founders: Sukemasa Kabayama, CEO; Jonathan Wills, CTO; Rahul Rajan, Chief AI Officer
- What it does: 3D analysis to enhance performance and health
- HQ: Palo Alto
- Employees: 25
- Total funding: $8.5 million
How different is the company you have today compared with the company you first envisioned? In the early days, we focused on providing our movement tracking technology to large fitness gyms and boutique studios. We soon realized that they were more focused on operational cost reduction rather than a form tracking service for their members. We pivoted to focus more on sports specific movement tracking especially in professional sports since a few degrees or inches can make a huge difference in performance and potential risk of injury for elite athletes.
Who are your customers? Our technology is deployed with Golftec Inc. (the world's largest golf instruction company), a third of MLB teams, the NBA and numerous prestigious sports academies and colleges nationwide.
Do you have an exit strategy? Our space of 3D-movement-tracking technology has seen a record number of acquisitions over the last few years by technology, sports related, athletic apparel, and healthcare companies. It shows the breadth of applicability of our technology. However, we are heads down focused on building the best product that delivers a fantastic user experience which translates to strong sales growth.
How do you plan to scale? Over the last few years, we have focused on sports-specific movement tracking and analysis such as how athletes perform a golf swing, a baseball pitch or basketball jump shot. What we're now excited about is our roll out of our movement assessment product in the first quarter of 2023. By understanding how athletes of all skill levels move naturally, such as if they have prior joint injuries or restrictions in their range of motion, we can connect the dots from how they move to help optimize their performance. I believe there is no other startup out there that is solving for these two-sides of the coin. We’ve already started to move into the general musculoskeletal related healthcare space such as sports rehabilitation or physical therapy which is a much larger addressable market in dire need for a solution such as ours.
What other businesses and business leaders give you inspiration? Hands down it would be Patagonia and Yvon Chouinard. They truly practice what they preach and I cannot think of another company that sets such an incredibly high bar for customer service and a mission driven business practice. I remember bringing a 7-year-old windbreaker to their store for repair and when they said they couldn’t repair it due to significant wear and tear, they replaced it with a new one at no cost! Who does that?! Also, how many founder CEOs give away their company and fortune to help fight climate change the way Yvon Chouinard did? He’s all in and a truly admirable leader.
