New technology from startup ventures is transforming the sports industry. The mission of this series will be to introduce startup companies in the sports technology space to a broader audience and allow Founders of promising new ventures to tell their story. Feel free to contact us if you know of a startup that should be considered for this series.
Company: udobu
CEO: Gaby Kaminsky
Headquarters: Tel Aviv, Israel
1. What is your elevator pitch?
Udobu optimizes capacity utilization as well as revenues from sports venues, leveraging unique, industry specific predictive models, enabling teams to approach each fan in a personalized way. It’s a combination of best practices and approaches from multiple disciplines: airline and hotel revenue management, as well as e-commerce and advertising predictive targeting.
2. Problem & Solution
Empty seats are a problem. Whether due to unsold tickets or unused tickets, they translate into a loss of potential revenue from ticket sales, food & beverage, merchandise and sponsorship opportunities.
We have developed a model, enabling teams to predict individual fan behavior and act upon the prediction to engage directly with each fan in a personalized way, to drive the desired results for the team.
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3. Market – your target market and the overall market
We have started with a strong focus on European soccer, and having signed already one of the biggest clubs in the industry, as well as a few others, we are now starting to look at other sports and geographies as well. Eventually, the relevant market is anyone selling tickets, be it for sports, performing arts, movies, museums, tourist attractions, conferences, etc.
4. Business Model – how do you make money?
Our business model is of a revenue share based on incremental revenues generated as well as sales of extra tickets, merchandise and others.
5. Management Team – with titles
Gaby Kaminsky – CEO
IESE MBA, Cornell Hotel Revenue Management, extensive general management and product management experience in startups and large corps, and an ex-negotiations consultant.
Eran Huberman – VP R&D
MBA and BSc in Computer Science from Bar Ilan University, Israel. Group Manager at Elbit Systems and Team Leader at SanDisk.
Adar Shtainhart – CTO
MSc in Computer Science, BSc in Mathematics from Tel Aviv University, Israel. Team Leader and focus on algorithmic development at Samsun Research and Plataine.
6. What else do you want the audience to know about your venture?
It is important to stay focused on the short term goal, however without losing sight of what’s coming next and industry trends.
Our long-term vision is to be the Amadeus of the Sports & Entertainment industry, tackling the problem at hand on multiple fronts, also with better pricing, channel management and inventory control, all based on data analysis and machine learning capabilities.
This vision has gotten us the attention of the press in the boiling Israeli technology ecosystem, signaling udobu as one of the top startups to graduate from Israel’s #1 accelerator program, Microsoft Ventures Accelerator.
Bonus Question:
If you could go to any sporting event, what would it be and why?
Given my Argentinean heritage, I guess my event of choice would be World Cup Final, Mexico ’86. I was 7 at the time, and I’ll never forget the intensity of the last 10 minutes. It would have been amazing to be there in person.