Wednesday Jun 24
SPORTOther

Sportway Raises €20M For AI Cameras

23JUN
AI CAMERA 250K/YR

A Swedish startup is filming the games TV never bothered with. Sportway raised €20M to run 2,500 AI cameras that auto-produce 250,000 youth and lower-league matches a year. No camera crew needed.

Pro-quality coverage used to be reserved for elite leagues. Sportway's AI does the camera work, the editing, and the live feed automatically.

The round values it near €92M, led by Gamma Waves. Founders Jonas Persson and Daniel Franck started it in 2017. It now works with 70+ federations across 21 countries.

The bet: every league wants a broadcast, most can't afford a crew. AI closes that gap and unlocks a long tail of sports media nobody monetized.

full brief & sources

⚡ Why this matters

  • AI moves sports broadcasting from elite-only to every level.
  • The funding signals investors see a real long tail in lower-league media.
  • Camera crews were the cost wall. AI just removed it.

🔍 What happened

  • Jun 23: Sportway raises €20M, led by Gamma Waves.
  • Post-money valuation near €92M, about SEK 1 billion.
  • 2,500 AI camera systems deployed across 21 countries.
  • It produces 250,000+ live events a year.
  • It works with 70+ federations, leagues, and clubs.
  • Founded in 2017 by Jonas Persson and Daniel Franck.

💬 Smart takes

  • Sportway: AI and automation make large-scale broadcasting 'economically viable' from youth leagues to national federations.
  • Skeptic: auto-produced feeds still lag human directors on the big moments. Fine for a U15 game, risky for anything fans pay real money to watch.

🧭 Where this goes

  1. Likelymore federations sign on as the per-event cost keeps falling.
  2. Likelyrivals like Genius Sports push deeper into automated production.
  3. Possiblea major league trials AI cameras as a cheaper second feed.
  4. Wild Carda broadcaster buys Sportway to own the long-tail layer.

🥄 The Spoon Take

Sports media's next growth isn't the Super Bowl. It's the 250,000 games nobody filmed because a crew cost too much. Strip out the humans and the economics flip. Sportway is betting the long tail of sport is bigger than the head.

🤔 Pushback

Auto-produced sport is a commodity. The moment Genius Sports or a hyperscaler bundles it for free, Sportway's €92M valuation looks fragile.

·Tech.eu - Sportway €20M raise·SportBusiness - AI broadcast move·SwedishTechNews - €20M round