Sports
Milwaukee smart basketball hoop startup raises $11M, plans local … – Milwaukee Business Journal
A startup founded in Milwaukee that aims to be “the Peloton of basketball” with its smart, interactive hoop has raised $11 million to finance its growth.
Huupe developed a full-size smart basketball hoop with a weatherproof screen for a backboard that tracks players’ shooting statistics, offers on-demand training sessions and allows users to play together even if they’re across the world.
The latest capital will help the company deliver its first 1,000 units this year, including deliveries to public basketball courts in Milwaukee, Huupe CEO and co-founder Paul Anton told Wisconsin Inno. The startup is also growing its team, he said.
“Our dream is to connect the world through basketball and get people off the couch and playing more of it,” Anton said in a recent statement.
Huupe has already received pre-orders for nearly all of its first 1,000 units, Anton said. As word of its product has spread through social media and events, orders have come in from professional athletes, gyms and families that live all over the world, he said.
Huupe received early funding from Wisconsin investors and NBA players. The $11 million in funding it recently announced includes around $1 million it previously raised, the company said.
The lead investors in Huupe’s latest funding round were Marvan Ventures, which is owned by Milwaukee Bucks minority owner Keith Mardak; Protagonist VC; TRI Investments; and Kawn VC. Other investors were Genesis Ventures, Kayan VC and Reform Ventures, a firm led by NBA player Thaddeus Young.
Previous Huupe investors were Tundra Angels of Green Bay; F Street Ventures, part of Milwaukee’s F Street Group; Ball Tek, a group of angel investors in Milwaukee and Washington, D.C.; and JB Fitzgerald Venture Capital, owned by former NBA player Trevor Booker.
Huupe recently hired a full-time content director to oversee video production for social media and its training platform, and it’s building portable trailers to host events in cities around the country, Anton said.
Most of Huupe’s 20-person team, which includes employees and independent contractors, is based in Wisconsin, Anton said. The startup intends to hire another five to 10 people this year, including engineers and basketball trainers that will help with events and marketing, Anton said.
Huupe already has gyms set up in Milwaukee, Los Angeles and Miami, Anton said. It uses its existing Milwaukee gym for prototyping but plans to partner with Milwaukee’s Community Within the Corridor affordable housing development to introduce smart hoops at the gym in that development, he said.
The first phase of Community Within the Corridor is open and the development’s gym, which will be open to the public, is expected to open in June, developer Que El-Amin said.
El Amin’s brother Khalif El-Amin, who runs a Wisconsin startup accelerator program with Que called The Blueprint, has been a big champion of Huupe, Anton said.
“He’s just helped push us along the way,” Anton said. “When we were struggling at the beginning, he really gave us great advice.”
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