The Galway based business which provides the only all-in-one sports club management platform is partnering with UCD-based Output Sports. The goal behind the strategic partnership is to further help customer clubs to improve on-field play and enhance player’s performance by providing them with a means to monitor and track their progress.
Clubforce is the Irish leader in club automation, simplifying payments and providing a communications, promotions and fundraising platform for members, clubs and leagues. With recent funding the company has more than doubled in size to realise the goal of creating a new Sports Technology ecosystem and category, Sports Participation Technology.
Output Sports, the UCD spin-out, is a sports technology company which makes elite level performance tracking more simple and widely available than ever before. Their technology uses wearable and phone camera sensing technology to track gym performance with lab grade accuracy and integrates this data for enhanced training, injury risk stratification and talent ID. It is the most diversely capable performing testing tool on the market and has clients in more than 17 countries including in the GAA Championship, English Premier League, NBA, Six Nations Rugby and Major League Baseball.
CEO of Clubforce, Warren Healy said in support of the announcement: “Our vision at Clubforce is joy, health and wellbeing through sport. Offering clubs and volunteers new technology to enhance their experience is at the core of who we are and what we do. Clubforce and Output Sports share this mission of bringing sport and its benefits to as many people as possible. We are really excited to see the added dimension and enjoyment this will bring to both our members and players.”
Colm Ó Méalóid, Business Development Executive, responsible for the partnership at Clubforce adds: “At Clubforce, we are always on the lookout for ways we can help clubs improve. Although we generally focus on off-the-field activities such as fundraising and membership management, partnering with Output Sports presented a great opportunity to assist clubs in improving their on-field performance.”
He adds: “Their technology enables both coaches and players to measure strength, power, speed and movement which is sure to improve their performance on the field. This kind of monitoring is often overlooked. I am looking forward to welcoming Output Sports into the partnership ecosystem we are building at Clubforce.”
Darragh Whelan, Co-Founder of Output Sports said in response to the partnership: “At Output Sports, we are passionate about bringing elite level sports testing and tracking to a much wider audience than ever previously possible. Clubforce has a proven track record in working with GAA teams at all levels to efficiently manage all aspects of their club. As such, they are a natural partner for us as we bring the same performance technology used by Provincial and All Ireland winners to the wider GAA community. We look forward to working with them to ensure that athletes at all levels of the GAA reach their training goals safely and efficiently.”
Output Sports is headquartered at NovaUCD and was founded by Dr Darragh Whelan, Dr Martin O’Reilly, Julian Eberle and Professor Brian Caulfield. It is a spin-out from the UCD School of Public Health, Physiotherapy and Sports Science and the Insight SFI Research Centre for Data Analytics. It is based on scientific research funded by Science Foundation Ireland, the Irish Research Council & Enterprise Ireland prior to securing a seed round of €1.3m in February 2020 led by the Atlantic Bridge University Fund, with Elkstone Partners, Enterprise Ireland, and angel investors, John Hearne (co-founder and former CEO of Curám Software) and Leinster Rugby players, Adam Byrne and Dan Leavy.
Output Sports launched their first product, Output Capture, last February. Since then, they have built a strong customer base across numerous sports such as basketball, baseball, rugby, GAA and soccer. The company is currently fundraising €3m in order to allow for scale. The partnership strategically aligns both companies by combining the strength of Clubforce club automation capabilities with the Output Sports dedicated focus on player performance and wellbeing.
