Wilshire Axon Sports Obtains Funding To Expand Revenue Generating Fan Engagement Solution
Sports Technology news out of Los Angeles that Wilshire Axon Sports completed a $2.0 million Series A round of financing is about to change the professional, collegiate and minor league teams and venue Industry thanks to their well thought out business plan. The money from lead investor Mosaik Partners, and co-investors KGC Capital and Al Hummel, will be used to expand their revenue generating fan engagement solution, SYNERGY. If you are in the sales, marketing and product development space, this provider is ready to talk and guide you on the digital path towards driving fan engagement and revenue through their mobile platform. The Sports Techie community blog received a demo given by Zaid Qureshi, Business and Marketing Analyst, focused on how they plan to impact the sports business world.
SYNERGY
Qureshi said, “The investment will support the company’s aggressive plan to expand our sales and marketing efforts, as well as fast-track product development.”
If you create content, want to track fans activity and increase sponsorship, the Wilshire Axon Sports tech wares might be for you. The company of 12 and their executives conducted a deep dive research study with general managers, fan panels and IT departments to find out what was missing with business operations from a mobile perspective. What they found was fan demographics have gotten younger, attendance has dwindled and the need for cloud based systems was ripe for a new product.
It became apparent sports leagues and teams have a fragmented way of using social media. Most every league or team had a different mode for advertising, using a content management system and integrating with other applications. The biggest find was most often, the software and tasks often did not drive revenue with these mobile, fan-centric opportunities.
“As an industry we’re just scratching the surface of how powerful mobile advertising and mobile driven in-venue and out-of-venue technologies can be to the sports industry,” said Wilshire Axon Sports’ Founder and Chief Executive Officer Laurence Sotsky. “Having the financial support and domain expertise of our investors will help us execute our vision even more rapidly and broadly.”
Thus, SYNERGY was created as the one-source tool that features CMS, geo-tagging and an integration platform that operates on iOS and Android unlike anything on the market.
Key features and benefits of the Wilshire Axon Sports’ solution are:
- Sophisticated advertising tools that create effective and non-intrusive advertising experiences for fans that maximize revenue.
- Robust content management system capable of pulling or pushing information to any social network, league, or conference feed.
- Plug-and-play access to the most advanced in-venue and out-of-venue technologies through an extensible partner integration engine.
- Unique geographic targeting tools that enable location-tailored marketing messages and offers.
This Series A financing comes on the heels on a progressive first several months of executing the business plan at SoCal’s Wilshire Axon Sports. Their attempt to supercharge professional sports, build a Salesforce CRM pipeline, hire key executives, and appoint an experienced advisory board, in addition to capitalizing on the worldwide surge on spending in mobile, sports, and advertising, is exciting to behold.
“Wilshire Axon Sports’ offering is well-timed with the rapidly increasing demand for solutions that extend the reach of a brand’s content and drive real revenue from mobile,” said Howard Mergelkamp from Mosaik Partners. Chris Capps from KGC Capital added, “We believe the sports market will continue to see a shift of brand dollars to mobile advertising. Wilshire Axon Sports is the most powerful solution in the sports industry and we are excited to support them as they work to build a great company in an exciting category.”
About Wilshire Axon Sports
Wilshire Axon Sports is dedicated to providing the absolute best suite of tools for teams to connect with their fans. Focused completely on driving revenue, we marry advanced technology with breathtaking design — all delivered through the fan’s personal mobile device. Wilshire Axon Sports is privately funded and based in Los Angeles, CA with offices in Palo Alto, CA and New York, NY. To learn more about the company visit: www.WilshireAxonSports.com and Twitter: @WilshireAxon.
About Mosaik Partners
Mosaik Partners is a San Francisco Venture Capital firm that funds commerce enabling technology companies that are revolutionizing the way consumers and businesses transact. With over four decades of combined industry experience investing in, operating and advising early to late stage commerce enabling technology companies, Mosaik provides entrepreneurs the capital, resources and guidance necessary to realize their big ideas at the critical expansion stage – driving growth, profitability and scale for their businesses. Mosaik helps these pioneering companies tackle their daily real-world challenges as they execute on evolving business strategies in a dynamic regulatory and technology environment. To find out more about Mosaik Partners, visit www.mosaikpartners.com.
About KGC Capital
KGC Capital focuses on early and mid-staged technology companies. They are based in Chicago, Il. For more information, please visit KGCCapital.com.
Sports Techie, The SYNERGY interface was built to tell a story, inspired by movie editing software. The apps timeline view gives a 24-hour cycle. A good example is the game day look when fans search for pre-game updates and injury information, and then during a live game, content is filled with stats and game flow data, while post-game content is often analysis and highlights. Each of these segments are a touch point for fan engagement and to drive revenue via digital ticket selling, merchandising, advertising, and food & beverage, by using SYNERGY.
SYNERGY’s groundbreaking GeoIQ technology allows users to tailor the experience for fans based on geography. Imagine being able to target a Boston Celtics fan in West LA with targeted advertising delivered with a customized look both in-stadium and out of stadium. Geo-fencing and iBeacon technology is used to identify and track fans in-venue and out. Location based notifications, content and ads can be automated by SYNERGY. An example is a fan walks by a venues kiosk, gets identified and then is offered a 25% off coupon for a team jersey at the Pro Shop.
The CMS on the backend allows users to manage the app. It can be tailored to automatically update, unlike traditional CMS products. You can set up the SYNERGY CMS to pull in certain data feeds like Twitter, Facebook and Google+ and then push certain data streams like Instagram, Pinterest and other social channels, as either live updates or during the 24 hour cycle.
The SYNERGY All-In-One Integration was designed so it could be tailored to fit any API need. Zaid explained to me this was planned because when it comes to scaling their solution, since they are a small team, it will prove difficult to build every bell and whistle component that is requested. Since they are not experts in all things, and trying to be that proves to be too hard for many companies who have failed, they believe integrating with whatever custom technology format is called for is a reasonable approach to success.
In order to understand the audience, data and data analytics are compiled from 77 different analytical providers and aggregators. I have never come across such an in-depth and robust metrics generator so be sure to consider this compelling Big Data feature if you want to better understand your fans behaviors.
In terms of accommodating sponsorship deals, this product manages contracts that range into the millions of dollars. In-seat ordering for teams is accomplished with flexibility and the ability to expand clientele. Add in the Custom Module Library and the solution is ready to be a valuable asset for clients. Cost depends on the scope of the deal per solution. Training is handled by a dedicated account executive.
Wilshire Axon Sports has traction with basketball and hockey. Qureshi says look for their first clients to be announced over the next several weeks. They held conversations with leagues who have expressed interest in a possible league-wide rollout.
It is always nice to support a #SportsTechie Twitter follower, so here is to the Wilshire Axon Sports product launch being a huge success because of some of you buyers.
See y’all later in Seattle and here in Atlanta.
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