On the Up: The Dunedin tech start-up taking on the world’s sport data

Jon Foote, founder and chief executive of Axon Perform, talks to Tom Raynel about creating a sports data platform of the future, and the exciting opportunities new sports bring. Each Monday, we interview a small business owner, which is now a regular feature of NZME’s editorial campaign rel="" title="https://www.nzherald.co.nz/topic/on-the-up/">On The Up, showcasing uplifting stories of success, inspiration and possibilities.

What is Axon Perform?

We’re a data-platform-as-a-service for sports teams. Typically, sports teams focus on playing, and they have specialist people in roles around performance, coaching and administration.

When it comes to the data, it’s a growing function, and teams are still grappling with the idea of how they handle so much data. We’ve got a scalable solution that takes away all the hard work of collecting, handling and analysing data so that they don’t have to spend a fortune on trying to set something up.

What inspired you to start the business?

About six and a half years ago, I started a data consulting business. Through that business, I started working with high performance at New Zealand Rugby. We went with them on a journey moving from spreadsheets into a data visualisation tool, and then working off a data platform.

I was working with the All Blacks and then the Super franchises, which led me to working with the Highlanders. Andy [Watts, Axon Perform product lead] was the performance analyst, so we were doing a lot of work together.

Andy contacted me prior to the 2023 Rugby World Cup while I was working with Japan and said, ‘I love this and I’m going to get out of rugby, how do I get into this?’ That was really the start of this turning into something that every team needs.

Axon Perform compiles data from several providers into one collective platform to give sports teams actionable insights for their players. One example shown here features the Blues' kicking performance during this year's Super Rugby season.

What goes into the reports the platform produces?

There are a number of third-party providers that teams will use for game analytics; primarily, we use one called Opta. The teams subscribe to Opta, and then the data gets sent to us. Each team will have their own subscription based on what competitions and players they want to follow, whether that’s the Japanese Top 14, Super Rugby or the international competitions.

There’s a huge amount of data, but data is useless without insight. We bring that all into one place. The actual analytical piece at the end, the reports, they’ve evolved over the last five years, and probably more so in the last 18 to 24 months since we’ve been selling as a platform.

You work with a number of rugby teams already. What are the opportunities going forward?

We currently work with the British & Irish Lions, the Springboks, and the Sydney Roosters in the NRL. We also recently picked up the English men’s and women’s 15s teams, and we’ve got a number of other international and club teams trialling the product.

There are only so many teams in rugby that we can work with, because globally it’s not that big. We’re currently working towards launching in football, which is quite exciting. We’ve been building out core template models that will allow us to present something to the market so they can see what we’re delivering very soon.

Did you fund the business yourself, and do you plan on raising capital for any expansions?

Very self-funded so far, and we’ll be taking on investment in the near future, once we have the level of traction that we want. No numbers yet, but I’ve got an idea of what I’d like it to be. There are a lot of factors when you’re raising money, obviously around valuation and how much percentage of the business you want to give away.

There are a lot of permutations and a lot of things that we need to make sure we’ve achieved before we get to that point. In the technology space, we’re really talking about what’s the potential value of it in five to 10 years.

Axon Perform's solution is used by the rugby world champion Springboks, the British & Irish Lions, and the NRL's Sydney Roosters. Photo / Photosport

What has been the biggest challenge in starting the business?

Money’s always a challenge; it’s always trying to do things on the smell of an oily rag. But when I first started my consulting business, it was very much built on relationships, and it’s been very similar with the sports stuff as well. I’ve built everything to this point on relationships, but now it’s about moving to the next stage, and that’s going into the market where you don’t know people and encouraging them to become customers. That’s the new challenge.

What would be your advice to other budding entrepreneurs wanting to start a business?

I think the advice for people that are trying to get into entrepreneurship or into business is to build a community first. Get out there and challenge yourself to become known on social media.

Marketplaces like LinkedIn and Instagram don’t reduce you to your local environment. If you can get out there, expose yourself and let people get to know you first, then the chances of building relationships and building networks get easier.

Tom Raynel is a multimedia business journalist for the Herald, covering small business, retail and tourism.