February 3, 2022

KDDI Corporation

Through KDDI Open Innovation Fund III (operated by Global Brain Corporation; hereinafter "KOIF III"), which aims to incubate new business co-creations with promising venture startups, KDDI additionally invested in RUN.EDGE Limited, a company that provides sports video analysis platforms (Headquarters: Shibuya-ku, Tokyo; President & CEO: Atsushi Oguchi; hereinafter "RUN.EDGE").

RUN.EDGE develops and offers platforms that enable the use of video scenes in a variety of fields, including sports analysis services "PITCHBASE" and "FL-UX," based on its patented "video scene playback" technology, for the purpose of delivering a new video experience to the world.
PITCHBASE is an application for baseball that pursues the optimized UI for looking back baseball scenes for each pitch. It has been adopted by more than 14 professional baseball teams in Japan (NPB) and in the United States (MLB). FL-UX [1] is an application for field sports such as soccer, basketball, and rugby that offers real-time tactical analysis and communication. This platform is used by more than 70 top professional and amateur clubs in and outside of Japan. RUN.EDGE will further its efforts in global business with a focus on Europe and the United States, in addition to in Japan, while stepping up its products and technologies.

Currently, TAGURU [2], an online educational service, has had its full-scale roll-out, and introductions and trials of their services are underway in areas such as real estate, construction sites, entertainment and other domains. RUN.EDGE seeks to further its provision of value through communication and collaboration, using a massive volume of video sources as scenes.

Through this fund, KDDI will offer multifaceted support to increase the number of clubs introducing PITCHBASE and FL-UX, as well as deploy the services to other fields.

As "the company that customers feel closest to," KDDI will continue to promote business co-creation through investment in promising startup companies, and create new business models together with customers and partners.

MUGENLABO Magazine
"Making video usable as "scenes" in all sorts of social activities - RUN.EDGE" (in Japanese only)

(Reference)

• ■Overview of RUN.EDGE

  • (1)

    Company name: RUN.EDGE Limited

  • (2)

    Headquarters: Shibuya-ku, Tokyo

  • (3)

    Date founded: June 2018

  • (4)

    Business: Development and provision of video search/analysis services for the field of sports

  • (5)

    Representative: Atsushi Oguchi
    URL: https://www.run-edge.com/ (in Japanese only)

• ■About KDDI Open Innovation Fund

  KDDI Open Innovation Fund is a corporate venture fund that supports a broad range of venture companies. The currently active KDDI Open Innovation Fund III focuses on the areas of AI, IoT, data marketing, fintech, B2B SaaS, and entertainment with a total operating fund of 20 billion yen.

• [1]

  For more information about FL-UX, visit the following website.
  URL: https://fl-ux.run-edge.com/en
  URL: https://basketball.fl-ux.run-edge.com/ (Featured site for basketball) (in Japanese only)

• [2]

  For more information about TAGURU, visit the following website.
  URL: https://taguru.run-edge.com/ (in Japanese only)