In episode seven of In Conversation With... I talk to SportsTech.ai's Ryan McCumber where we talk all things HYPE Sports Innovation's second Global Virtual Accelerator (GVA).

HYPE's GVA is the forum where startups pitch to develop pilots with international federations and major clubs and franchises.

We talk about how it was formed, how it developed, who was picked and what major technologies the big global sports players are looking for.

In episode six of In Conversation With… I spoke to Max Montrey from Sportstrace.

Sportstrace is an athlete performance tool where users take mobile phone video from games, training and practice, upload their vision using the SportsTrace mobile app and athletes, and their coaches, get feedback on their mechanics, motion, swing and so much more.

Sportstrace’s tech then provides personalised insights, drills and exercises to assist their performance.

In this conversation, Max impressively lays out the company's vision touching on:

• Making biomechanical tracking accessible for athletes. Which forms a major part of their mission.

• Offering tech usually reserved for the elite it’s come to youngsters, amateurs and semi-pros and emerging athletes.

• Ensuring data is relevant and data for a large user base of athletes.

• The lessons learned from working at Microsoft. How they have brought that experience into Sportstrace.

In episode 005 of In Conversation With… I spoke to Jacqueline Garrett, the founder of GGWP Academy.

This is a company I’ve tracked for a couple years now since they went through the leAD Accelerator out of Berlin in 2019.

Fast-forward to 2021, the company were accepted into renowned Australian tech accelerator Startmate and took on a little bit of seed funding to ready themselves for a much larger raise later this year.

In this conversation I learn more about where the company is heading, their trajectory and how GGWP’s combination of marketplace, influence and education in the gaming and streaming spaces is revealing itself.

The reason for doing this interview is that I can see the company’s vision coming to life, the centralisation of education, marketplace, intelligence.

In the latest In Conversation With… I spoke to the founder and CEO of GameOn, Matt Bailey.

GameOn helps sports and entertainment content providers build engagement and second screen interactivity with their free-to-play gamification platform.

Their tech can be deployed to TV networks, OTT platforms, sportsbooks or leagues, GameOn helps clients turn any content, live or not, into interactive and social experiences via mobile and TV apps.

In December 2020, GameOn were, in effect, acquired by Canadian company Victory Square Technologies. It wasn’t an exit, it’s now a chance to go public as a small cap company.

Victory Square incubates, acquires and invests in startups in the tech, gaming and content spaces, but they don’t invest in the straight VC sense. They help take companies public.

As GameOn has been rolled into Victory Square Technologies, the aims are still the same – to make television, sports and streaming viewership multi-dimensional.

There’s exciting times ahead.

In this conversation, we talked about:

- Their merger, being under the auspices of Victory Square Technologies.

- The capital raise, and going public.

- The team that has been built. The team is important and I wanted to know more about that.

- Matt's resilience as a person and company builder.

In episode three of In Conversation With... I spoke to Neil Klerck from Baseline Media.

A bit about Neil’s recent past, his former company Tifo Football was a leader in visual and graphical storytelling about the beautiful game. He subsequently sold Tifo Football to The Athletic in April 2020.

Now he’s turned his gaze on to individual sports with his new company.

Baseline Media produces visually rich, short-form content, podcasts and social media about the world of tennis. With golf to come soon.

Tennis, being an individual sport, lots of tournaments and a year-round tour does have its storytelling challenges and foibles.

We talked about:

- Storytelling; the art, the inspiration and philosophies behind his company's style.

- The challenges with tennis media, what makes tennis a very tough nut to crack in terms of storylines, reporting and cutting through the fragmented, all year-round nature of every tour.

- His company’s plans.

In Episode 2, we’re In Conversation With… Kristin Geer from Bleachr.

Bleachr is by nature an app-developer but they’ve evolved into developing a rich suite of sports fan solutions that encompasses broadcasting tools, games, communications, communities and experiences.

They made huge early strides into tennis, with a lot of major clients in the sport with their product TennisONE but they’ve now expanded to take on partners in college sports, for one, and have pilots going with some hugely exciting clients as well.

With their new flagship product, CrowdViewLIVE, Bleachr is looking to the future of broadcast: they’ve developed tools for interactive broadcast experiences, richer fan involvement and being a companion app for sports broadcasts.

Recently involved with HYPE Sports Innovation’s first Global Virtual Accelerator and they’ll be there for number two. They were also recently nominated in three categories in the Sports Technology Awards, so interest in the company is rising.

In this conversation we talked about:

- How the pandemic changed their proposition and technological development

- The positioning of Bleachr to enhance broadcasts. I asked how does Bleachr reduces the ‘flatness’ of broadcast sport?

- And their evolving client and user bases.

On the very first episode of In Conversation With…I talked to the founders of US-via India fan engagement company Fanisko, Aravind Sampath and Sathish Chittibabu.

Fanisko is a fan engagement and analytics company that helps an assortment of clubs and brands with digital transformation projects that focus in on driving fan experiences. They design data-driven campaigns, interactive experiences such as games and mixed reality tools as well as helping with sponsor activations.

In this episode we talked about this and more:

- Fanisko's tech stack;

- The casual vs the digitally-savvy fan; so how does the digitally-savvy person get ushered into being a fanatical fan?;

- As fans of teams can be fragmented and siloed, I queried how Fanisko helps clubs and clients understand their fans on a deeper level;

- The working relationship, and dynamics, between co-founders.

It's Bullpen's founder, Clint Vojdinoski, here and I'm bringing you In Conversation With… my first foray into podcasting. This is the preamble episode 0!

Let's hear more voices in the startup, company and emerging tech spaces. The mantra running through the series is simple: "You should know about them."