Danish startup Veo invented an AI camera for recording football matches and has now raised $6 million in A-round funding. Money earmarked at expanding into the U.S. market.
Every year, millions of football games are played worldwide for the sport’s four billion fans. Almost none of these are recorded – and nor are the millions of goals and unique football moments.
Danish startup Veo has solved this problem with a portable and affordable football camera that allows anyone, anywhere to record and analyze football matches without the need of a cameraman. The company raised six million dollars in A-round funding led by pan-European Ventech Capital, U.S.-based Courtside Ventures, and Danish VC Seed Capital. The new capital will be used to launch in the U.S. in an effort to penetrate the North American market, and Veo cameras already started shipping to US and Canadian clubs.
“Henrik and the Veo team have harnessed their impressive creativity and entrepreneurial vision to transform how important moments are captured in the sports industry. We are excited to support Veo’s global ambition to share their best in class, AI-powered video solution to football teams worldwide,” explains Ventech Partner Tero Mennander on the global, early-stage VC’s investment.
“With this injection of capital, we can start meeting our own expectations of becoming a central player, both on the North American and the global football market”, says Veo CEO and founder Henrik Teisbæk.
The Veo football camera provides a solution to a prevalent problem in football teams on most levels: To record a football match or -training properly, a club needs a cameraman who can follow the players from an elevated spot by the pitch and has the technical knowhow to cut and edit highlights from the full recording. For the vast majority of football teams, this is not a realistic setup.
“We have an ambition of making video technology a natural part of football – in all clubs, on all levels. Not only in the biggest clubs who already have the resources to do so and just want an easier solution. But especially for the smaller clubs who haven’t had the opportunity to record football like this, until now,” says Henrik Teisbæk.
The camera itself is a dual 4K lens camera that records the entire pitch. And because it requires no cameraman, it can be mounted on a 23ft tripod with optimal view. The real magic, however, lies in the processing where Veo’s patented AI-powered software detects both ball and players to create a perfectly balanced broadcast view for its users. Just like a football match on TV. Both Veo’s software and hardware is developed and produced in the company’s office in Copenhagen, Denmark, where 35 people currently are employed.
In the last year alone, 25,000 games have been recorded by 3,000 teams in 50 countries worldwide using Veo. That’s 13 times more than Europe’s five biggest leagues combined, and as Veo keep increasing its sales, these numbers will grow exponentially, turning Veo into probably the biggest football broadcaster in the world.
Veo was founded in 2015 Henrik Teisbæk, Jesper Taxbøl and Keld Reinicke. See it in action yourself here: https://player.vimeo.com/video/333529341
