A latest sports tech startup, Volley, goals to revolutionize the way in which racquet sports players (platform tennis, padel, and pickleball) train with its AI-enabled sports training machine.
Unlike traditional tennis ball machines that simply launch balls at various speeds and heights, Volley’s trainer robot leverages AI and vision software to gather data as you play, learn your skill level, and simulate live gameplay– making it so that you never need a full team to have a good training session.
“Volley is an excellent machine for the professionals, the beginners, and everybody in between due to AI and the smarts of the system,” co-founder and CEO John Weinlader tells TechCrunch. “It understands the sport, where you’re on the court and responds as in the event that they were an actual opponent. So you’re playing at a level that you simply would in an actual game.”
Image Credits: Volley
Moreover, Volley has three cameras built into the device for various purposes like person and ball tracking, in addition to video recording. One camera lives contained in the machine to assist with maintenance, letting customer support virtually find the issue and walk you thru how one can fix it.
One other detail that makes it stand out is the speaker and LED screen so instructors can guide a whole group through workouts. Also, its adjustable height is about to 87 inches, with the flexibility to tilt 56 degrees up and 38 degrees down and rotate 34 degrees left or right, allowing for a wide range of shot angles.
Through Volley’s mobile app (available on iOS and Android devices), you may access customized drills, view footage to review your footwork, access player stats and more. You may as well digitally control the machine by tapping in your phone to pick where you would like the ball to land. Moreover, the trainer collects and stores all of that data so while you come back to the club, it’s going to proceed from where you left off.
Volley touts 1,007 app installs.
Plus, the corporate is always adding latest features. Most recently, Volley added a side-by-side video comparison feature to the app so you may clearly see the differences in your form. At the top of this month, in the course of the RacquetX Conference, Volley will exhibit its upcoming hand gestures feature, which permits you to control the trainer and not using a mobile device.
Image Credits: Volley
Volley’s trainers were released in September 2023 and sold out in lower than 4 months. The corporate distributed 110 trainers to 45 platform tennis and Padel clubs across the U.S., including Connecticut, Florida, Illinois, Massachusetts, Maryland, Latest Jersey, Ohio, and Pennsylvania.
“As evidenced by our phenomenal growth since launching, we now have proven there may be demand for our next-generation technology that simulates live play on the court. Other sports solutions, just like the golf simulator, have provided people higher access to work on their game; that is what Volley delivers for racquet sports,” Weinlader says.
The corporate charges each club a leasing fee of $1,500 to $3,000 per thirty days. The price is dependent upon the variety of trainers a club needs in addition to the variety of features used and members served.
It’s currently deploying its second round of trainers.
Image Credits: Volley
Volley was founded by two brothers John and Dan Weinlader, who each have engineering backgrounds and previously built an AgriTech business for John Deer.
As an avid platform tennis player, John got here up with the concept for Volley when he decided to place a tennis ball machine up on painter sticks to mimic certain shots.
“With racquet sports, the one technique to improve is to go to the court and play with three other players or a professional – and that didn’t necessarily guarantee you’d give you the chance to work on the shots that were most difficult for you. I grew really frustrated with the dearth of options and at last decided to take matters into my very own hands,” John says.
Three years and eight prototypes later, the corporate developed the trainer that’s in the marketplace today.
There was quite a little bit of tech innovation within the racquet sports space, from Slinger’s portable ball launcher and accompanying app that may record the variety of shots and supply personalized coaching tricks to Proton, a wise ball machine with internal sensors that ensures balls are delivered where you would like them at the suitable speed and spin. Meanwhile, Swing Vision sells a phone mount that might be attached to the fence so players can record themselves playing. Users upload footage to its AI-powered app that tracks shot placement and provides stats like ball speed and win percentages.
Nonetheless, Volley believes it doesn’t have a direct competitor because it combines video recording and ball dishing out into one device, while also taking an AI-driven approach to simulate live play on the court.
“Volley is in a category by itself since the ball trainers of yesterday aren’t any longer meeting the needs of players and pros. We see ourselves because the next-generation solution— similar to golf simulators are innovating golfer training,” John says.
“While the recognition of racquet sports has exploded, the technology to support the sport has remained unchanged. Paddle is very nuanced due to its wide range of shots, ability to play off the screen, and the proven fact that it is sort of exclusively intended for doubles,” he adds.
On the long-term roadmap, the corporate says it wants to begin leasing trainers to individual players who’ve at-home courts. Volley also recently partnered with the American Platform Tennis Association (APTA) so as to expand its reach.
While the corporate is entirely self-funded up to now, Volley is within the strategy of raising a $4 million Series A round, expected to shut mid-April.