SportsTech Slamdunk in Serbia
A look at an emerging SportsTech market
The end of October also marked the end of a five month program for SportsTech startups in Belgrade, Serbia. Colosseum Sports Tech Serbia hosted their Demo Day 2019 on Oct 30 where six teams pitched in front of a jury of industry experts and fund representatives. This gave me the perfect excuse to visit Belgrade and try out some local Kafanas but that story is for another time.
The program kicked off with a Summit in May and over the course of five months the first batch of startups got to participate in workshops and mentoring sessions with athletes, entrepreneurs and industry leaders to help scale their business ideas before final pitches on Demo Day. All this was made possible through the cooperation between Colosseum Sport and Science Technology Park Belgrade (STP Belgrade). The initiative also includes the Republic of Serbia Government, the City of Belgrade and the University of Belgrade as partners.
Serbia has always had a rich sporting, history from Novak Djokovic to Nemanja Vidic to top mens and womens teams in Basketball, Volleyball and other sports. Coupled with the growing influence of technology initiatives in the country, Colosseum SportsTech Serbia seemed like a natural addition to bridge the two growing sectors and allow Serbia the chance to develop as a leader in the region and eventually on the global SportsTech landscape.
Startup Competition
Here are the startups that pitched on Demo Day
The Winner - Sportifico: Women’s football focused platform to connect female athletes with top brands
3D Basketball skills: Training tools for Basketball players
Appollo: Personalised fitness training and trainer discovery
My Fit World: Marketplace for trainers to present themselves along with tools to help streamline their business
SkillBall: Training tools and tutorials for regular sports fans
Wannabet: A peer-2-peer betting platform that enables users to bet directly against each other
Looking forward to next year
Was great to see more countries launch serious initiatives around SportsTech and also to connect with the vibrant and growing ecosystem in Serbia. Kudos to Oren and Tim from Colosseum and Jelena, Nevena and the rest of the STP team for what was a super successful event. Looking forward to next year already!
Want to learn more about SportsTech startups? Checkout our global database, SportsTechDB. Why stop there? Read up on SportsTech in Europe in our European SportsTech Report or sign up for our upcoming Global SportsTech VC Report.
Rohn Malhotra is a Co-Founder at Berlin based SportsTechX — Data & insights about SportsTech startups and the surrounding ecosystem. You can get in touch via LinkedIn, Twitter or email.
