LA Dodgers launch accelerator
US baseball team, the LA Dodgers have launched an accelerator which includes two digital health startups. The three month accelerator will help startups forge sports industry partnerships, open up distribution channels and provide other strategic support, along with $120,000 in funding. Focus Motion, one of the startups supported, will help athletes monitor and analyse their movements with wearable devices, helping the athletes avoid over-training. Kinduct, the other startup in the accelerator, has developed a health and fitness data management platform.
In the past few years, a variety of professional sports leagues, including the NBA, NFL, and FIFA, have tested and used digital health offerings with athletes while training and tracking performance. Now, the LA Dodgers, a baseball team, and ad agency R/GA have launched an accelerator with 10 startups, two of which are digital health focused.

The three-month accelerator works with startups that are focusing on the intersection of sports, technology, entertainment, and media. The program, run in Los Angeles, will help startups forge sports industry partnerships, open up distribution channels, and provide other strategic support. Startups will also receive $120,000 in funding.

One of the digital health companies in the LA Dodgers Accelerator, Santa Monica, California-based FocusMotion, helps athletes monitor and analyze their movement with wearable devices. FocusMotion syncs its software program with any open wearable device platform and integrates with a company's preexisting iOS or Android app.

Using pattern recognition, FocusMotion can learn, identify, and count the user's movement. Based on this data, FocusMotion will help the user understand when they have poor form or feel fatigue so that athletes can prevent overtraining. The company said some use cases for the technology include physical therapy, sports, and training.

Kinduct, the other digital health-focused company in the accelerator, has developed a health and fitness data management platform. The company has created an offering that helps teams track athletes, provides healthcare organizations with patient engagement tools, and allows physical therapists to offer medical education and exercise prescription tools.

The company's Kinduct Performance offering, for athletes, collects data from wearable devices, statistics feeds, assessment results, and staff notes. It stores and visualizes the data to compare an athlete's performance against benchmarks and over time. The program also allows users to create custom assessments and programs that help the coaching staff and athletes stay on track. It also helps athletes follow specific training programs that focus on strength and condition, rehab, and nutrition.