Copenhagen-based Jabbr wants to level the playing field in combat sports and give access to those who didn’t have it before. The Danish AI startup’s main objective is to liberate the opportunity to improve and be discovered as a fighter and thus make the sport even better, more competitive, and attract even more talent in the future.
Founded in 2022, Jabbr just raised €685k in seed funding from two Danish VCs, PreSeed Ventures and Accelerace, who, along with 4 business angels, gave their support to the talented founders leading this endeavor.
“AI will define a generation of new tech companies, and the winners will be those with original datasets who can translate their accuracy into a product people want to use. Jabbr is well on its way to doing exactly that for combat sports. We’re excited to join forces with PSV in the investment of Jabbr because we have a long tradition of investing together, and that means the founders benefit from two very large pools of experience at the same time,” said David Today Ventzel, partner and fund manager at Accelerace.
A few years ago, founders Allan Svejstrup and Elias Obeid discovered the potential of distributing advanced technology in combat sports to bring objective insights into a game traditionally evaluated subjectively. At Jabbr they’ve developed an advanced computer-vision AI system called DeepStrike designed for combat sports. ‘DeepStrike’ can analyse the performance of athletes in fights and sparring sessions, and instantly generate analytical statistics on 50 different parameters to help determine strengths and weaknesses in a fighter’s game. It also automatically generates individual highlight videos and can even convert the output from static cameras into something that looks like a professional TV production. All without the time-consuming task of filming, watching, and editing.
The founders discovered that their tools to become better fighters wouldn’t have to be limited to a closed circle and went on a mission to liberate the world of combat sports from monetary limitations and level the playing field for all boxers no matter their social, financial or geographical background. The goal is to make professional-level analytics, content creation and fight streaming affordable and accessible to everyone in the sport, which means that it works with all video inputs and for a limited price, giving both the individuals and boxing clubs the ability to use it for all their members.
Christian Dalsgaard, Venture Lead from PreSeed Ventures’ Tech01 Fund, recognizes Jabbr’s potential by their ability to use their technology purposefully: “The mission of bringing fairness and equity into the world of combat sports by utilizing state of the art computer vision algorithms really resonated with us and seeing boxers all over the world express excitement for DeepStrike is a clear sign that the combat industry is ready for technology such as Jabbr’s”, he said.
Jabbr expects to launch its public MVP in early September this year.
