Boost

Founded in 2019, Boost (boostsport.ai) is a sports technology company that has developed a platform to analyze athletic performance and automate digital storytelling. The Seattle-based startup was founded by Mustafa Abdul-Hamid, a former professional basketball player, and Inga Nakhmanson, a computer vision and augmented reality specialist. Abdul-Hamid's background as a UCLA and international pro basketball player, combined with his master's degree from Stanford and experience co-founding another tech company, My90, provides a unique perspective on the intersection of sports and technology. Inga Nakhmanson brings extensive experience in building global teams and has successfully launched and sold companies in the augmented reality, e-commerce, and social media sectors.

The company's core offering is an AI-based data platform that utilizes computer vision and data analytics to extract insights from video footage without requiring wearable devices or special camera installations. This technology captures player and action data, identifies key events, and generates scouting reports and analytics for coaching staff. The platform serves a range of clients, including sports properties, media companies, sportsbooks, and e-commerce brands. Initially focused on basketball, Boost has expanded to support multiple sports, including American football and global football. For its clients, which have included the Big Ten Conference and 25 NCAA basketball programs like UCLA and the University of Florida, Boost provides tools to enhance fan engagement and create personalized content.

Boost's business model centers on providing this data and content generation as a service. The platform is engineered to unify disparate data sources into a single fan record, enabling marketers to build targeted audiences and increase revenue. It generates customized narratives, visual content, and even extended reality (XR) e-commerce experiences to foster direct-to-consumer relationships. After raising $2.34 million in seed funding from investors such as TitletownTech (a partnership between the Green Bay Packers and Microsoft), Portfolia, and Stadia Ventures, the company was acquired by Arria NLG on November 30, 2021. The acquisition aimed to combine Boost's sports analytics platform with Arria's Natural Language Generation (NLG) technology to re-define data-driven sports experiences.

Keywords: sports analytics, computer vision, player performance analysis, sports data, automated content generation, fan engagement, sports technology, scouting reports, video analysis software, Natural Language Generation, sports media, sports betting analytics, e-commerce sports, team performance, coaching tools, athlete tracking, AI in sports, digital storytelling, Big Ten Conference, Arria NLG