Reports suggest that live sports viewing is on the decline for certain sports, especially among Gen Z. To solve this, leagues and broadcasters are using different types of viewing experiences, statistics, and analytics to make sports more appealing to fans.
One way to do this is to provide an in-video game experience using volumetric video generation, which allows users to view play from different angles. The core technology uses a large number of cameras to capture footage in 3D, allowing everyone to see the footage from different perspectives. Canada-based Peripheral Labs wants to make this technology affordable for leagues and teams and reach more broadcasters and fans.
Peripheral Labs was founded in 2024 by Kelvin Kui and Mustafa Khan. Both worked on driverless cars for the University of Toronto team, winning several trophies. Mr. Khan has experience working as a researcher at Huawei, and Mr. Cui has experience working on chassis systems as a software engineer at Tesla.
“Mustafa and I are both big sports fans. He’s a big Arsenal fan, and I grew up watching the Vancouver Canucks since I was 7 years old. When Mustafa showed me his work on 3D reconstruction, my brain thought it would be cool to watch hockey this way (free-flowing, multi-angle). This is how we started Peripheral Lab,” Quy said in a phone call with TechCrunch.
The company said the idea of volumetric power generation is not new. But with new AI models and advances in computer vision, the founders believe the technology is ready for the masses.
The duo leverages their experience with self-driving cars to apply concepts of robot perception and 3D vision to 3D reconstruction of videos in sports. According to Cui and Khan, the system reduces camera requirements from more than 100 to 32, helping reduce costs and operational overhead. The startup aims to keep the hardware costs as low as possible for teams and broadcasters, with multi-year contracts for the platform.
This software platform uses a proprietary sensor stack to provide player biomechanical data and team and league statistics. This is similar to the sensors in self-driving cars that deeply capture the scene. This enables new ways for broadcasters and fans to control theatrical viewing using photorealistic 3D reconstruction technology. For example, if a fan only wants to track the player with the ball, they can do that. You can also freeze in-game moments to see fouls and critical moments during plays from different angles.
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“We use off-the-shelf cameras, but the way we package our robotics and ML experience gives us an advantage both in terms of platform and in terms of scaling from small practice enclosures to large soccer and football stadiums,” Cui said.
On the software side, he said the platform can observe various joints, including the movement of a player’s fingers, and measure flexion. For example, in the video above of two people playing football (soccer), the system measures knee and ankle flexion. This gives coaches more ideas about body positioning and player flexibility, which can help improve.
The startup raised $3.6 million in a seed round led by Khosla Ventures with participation from Daybreak Capital, Entrepreneurs First, and Transpose Platform.
Joe Roth, a partner at Entrepreneurs First, said the fund was surprised by how large a following the founder and his self-driving team had at the University of Toronto. He noted that investors are often hesitant to invest in sports-related startups, but Peripheral Labs is also an entertainment product.
“Their ultimate audience is the consumer, and their demand for sports content is not cyclical, but always changing. With Peripherals, the new normal for that consumption will be immersive, voluminous video. And the work they’re doing in sports now gives them the data, technology and deployment moat to be the only person in the market to make this possible,” he told TechCrunch via email.
Peripheral Labs said the startup has hand-picked VCs who can assist in various areas such as product development and go-to-market advice. The company has 10 engineers and aims to increase headcount with a focus on platform and hardware development to reduce the company’s costs, reduce system latency, and increase the resolution of 3D reconstructions.
The company did not disclose the partners it is working with, but said it is in talks with multiple teams and leagues in North America. The company competes with other startups such as Arcturus Studios in volumetric capture for sports.
