SportsTech Ireland has launched as an organization that aims to support and grow the development of sports technology companies in the Republic of Ireland. It will assist Irish companies within wearables, athlete analytics, gaming and sports nutrition technologies.
In comments via email, Martina Skelly, program director at SportsTech Ireland, said that the organization’s goal was “to establish Ireland as a world-leading destination for sports innovation, research and technology.”
Regarding the background of the founding of SportsTech Ireland, she detailed that the three founders, Skelly, Grainne Barry and Emily Ross, who all have backgrounds in health technology, “wanted to do something that would best leverage the natural strengths of the Limerick region to further develop the technology ecosystem here. We saw an opportunity to connect the people on ground here who are doing excellent work in research and sports technology innovation.”
Interestingly, as Skelly mentioned, SportsTech Ireland is not based in Dublin — the capital and most populous city in Ireland — but instead in Limerick, home to 195,175 inhabitants.
She wrote that the decision to base SportsTech Ireland there is because the city is “renowned throughout Ireland and further afield for being passionate about sports and the sporting nature of the fans.”
“This passionate reputation is supported by its infrastructure, events and its academic and educational providers with the University of Limerick Sporting Campus, Limerick Institute of Technology’s SportsLab, LERO the national software research center, an array of high tech multinationals, a strong manufacturing base, and an emerging internet of things (IoT) hub.”
She continued: “The space for growing a company is available in Limerick, along with testing facilities, a world class university with many related specialities and teams based here. All in a very compact city that enjoys a much lower cost base than Dublin.”
In order to achieve its lofty goals of making Ireland a leader in sports technology, she outlined three key approaches.
First, the organization is launching a “commercialisation program”, through the launch of an accelerator. To support this it is also developing a number of educational courses regional academic partners. Secondly, it has formally developed a network for members “to facilitate collaboration” between each other to to solve issues and create innovative projects. Finally, SportsTech Ireland is also seeking to create a “virtual research hub to attract world class researchers” to the region and country.
Skelly described that the short term strategic goals of this initiative was to double the number of indigenous sports technology firms in Ireland, attract international companies to locate to the country and also create 400 direct local jobs.
In order to help with the growth of the organization, to date, SportsTech Ireland has put in place partnerships in place with the University of Limerick, LeAD Berlin, Ryerson University in Toronto, the University of Michigan and London Sport. In addition to this, with its launch it was reported it had reached a formal partnership with SportExchange, based in the Dutch city of Eindhoven, to facilitate collaboration and shared research between the two countries.
Skelly detailed why the partnership with SportExchange came about. She wrote: “Eindhoven and Limerick have similar challenges, both regional cities with small populations, fighting to claim a position that can allow them to compete not just nationally, but internationally. Both countries lack the overall size to facilitate major scale ups. Our startups have to think outside of Ireland, or the Netherlands, if they have a vision for real growth.”
“Between both organizations, we have a wider pool of experts, and the ability to help each other with startups that need to grow.”
Ireland does have a number of notable sports technology companies including Shadowman Sports, which is currently expanding into the American market with its tackle dummies. Other companies within the industry include Kitman Labs and Orecco, with both firms providing data and analytics to improve athletes’ performance and training.
However, as outlined by Skelly, “Ireland lacks large indigenous sports brands on the ground here to provide the funding, and the ability to partner or scale to Irish start-ups.”
“If you combine that with the fact that the population of Ireland is only 4.7 million, it makes Irish sports technology companies extremely aware that they will not succeed unless they can scale internationally.”
There are some advantages to a smaller population in Skelly’s opinion as sports technology companies “are very export driven and Ireland is great for them to develop their products and use the small population size as a test bed before launching internationally. Part of what we are doing for indigenous startups is helping them to punch above their weight by connecting them into international partners that can facilitate their international growth.”
Despite these challenges she believes that Ireland is quite an attractive base for not just Irish-founded sports technology companies but also foreign firms.
“We’re seeing a high level of interest from international companies interested in using Ireland as a launch pad for entering European markets. We’ve all the infrastructure here, a highly educated English speaking workforce, and we’re part of the European Union (EU).”