Orreco, the city-based sports and data science company, will up scale its operations in Galway and the United States following a two million dollar series A investment from Silicon Valley-based venture firm True Ventures.
The investment will enable Orreco to fund its expansion in the United States and Europe, and further develop its pioneering product suite of sports science and data solutions for professional sports.
Orreco uses machine intelligence to find hidden signals in data including GPS and performance statistics to help improve athletic performance and reduce the incidence of illness and injury.
The company’s actionable data solutions have already gained significant traction with professional sports stars in Formula 1, on the PGA tour, and with players and teams in the NFL, NBA, MLB, NHL, English Premier League, and Olympic sports.
Founded in Ireland in 2010 by sport scientist Dr Brian Moore, now Orreco co-founder and CEO, and hematologist Dr Andrew Hodgson, Orreco will use the new cash injection for key hires in the Galway office.
Dr Moore said; “We are delighted to join the True portfolio given their proven track record in identifying market-leading solutions, particularly in our space. The investment will allow us to grow our US presence, further develop our product suite and support ongoing investment in research and development. We will actively recruit additional world-class data and sports scientists, and software engineers.
“This investment also moves us closer to the day when this expertise will be available to amateur athletes, helping us all to prepare for our next sporting event just like an Olympian or a pro-basketball player.”
The Orreco technical team has expanded to include Dr Andy Barr, former head of performance at the New York Knicks and Manchester City FC, and Dr Ara Suppiah, team physician to the winning 2016 US Ryder Cup team. Keith Wood, former captain of Ireland’s international rugby team and a former World Player of The Year in that sport, has taken on an executive director role, as well.
Orreco’s early investors include Brian Patterson, former chairman of Vodafone, Kevin Toland, CEO of Dublin Airport Authority, and internet pioneer Dennis Jennings, who was inducted into the Internet Hall of Fame.
PGA tour and major winning golfers Padraig Harrington and Graeme McDowell also became investors after experiencing the benefits of Orreco’s services first hand.
Orreco is the first high-performance sport company in the world to partner with IBM Watson, the cognitive computing platform. The Irish company’s actionable data and expertise is fed into Watson to help coaches and professional athletes make key decisions based on the latest scientific research and personalized solutions for nutrition, sleep and training programmes.
True Ventures’ co-founder Phil Black said; “Leveraging machine learning in personalized digital health care is a great opportunity. Orreco is poised for rapid growth in the professional and amateur athlete markets thanks to Brian and his team of veteran sports and data scientists.”
