Youth baseball video-based assessment and digital training platform Pelotero has raised $3 million to democratize access to player development support with an app-based model.
Pelotero (which means “ballplayer” in Spanish) collects data from phone videos, using computer vision capabilities, as well as other tracking inputs to identify athlete strengths and weaknesses before offering customized training programs. For now, the product is pitched toward coaches and facilities looking to individualize their offerings for players ranging from tweens to aspiring pros.
The company was founded by former Minnesota Twin and Toronto Blue Jay Chris Colabello and hitting coach Bobby Tewksbary, who worked with Colabello as well as 2015 AL MVP Josh Donaldson as approaches to swing techniques evolved in response to modern analytics.
“That was the initial kind of nugget for Pelotero—how do we take all of this data, all this technology that’s emerging, and make sense of it,” Pelotero CEO Bennett Fisher said. “There’s no world where every movement by every player on every field isn’t captured somewhere, right? The massive missing element right now is that nobody knows what all this data means.”
The round was led by Greg Ciongoli and Fisher, a tech entrepreneur. Additional investment came from Okta co-founder Frederic Kerrest and Accomplice founder Ryan Moore. Adam Kernander has come on board to lead engineering.
“A lot of our development will be around how we can deliver insights in a way that is much more seamless for the user,” Fisher said.
Already, Pelotero’s so-called “player intelligence” platform has been used for more than 10,000 players. It has relationships with more than 40 organizations ranging from high school teams to national clubs as well as a deal with baseball scouting service Perfect Game. Participants in Perfect Game showcase and prospect gateway events will receive Pelotero assessments and development plans based on their metrics.
“As I got to use it more and try it more—different subjects, different ages, different ability levels—you really saw the individual nature of each person’s workout protocol,” Perfect Game VP of scouting Jered Goodwin said. “That was the thing that really sold me.”