Zone7 Raises $8M For AI-Driven Athlete Performance Platform

Zone7, an Israeli-founded AI-powered injury prediction solution for athletes, announced on Thursday that it raised $8 million in a Series A round of funding led by Blumberg Capital, bringing its total funding to more than $10 million, according to the company’s statement.

The round includes participation from previous investors Resolute Ventures, UpWest, PLG Ventures and Joyance Partners, and additional investors including Value Stream Ventures, Alumni Ventures, and New York-based J-Ventures.

Founded in 2017 in Palo Alto, CA by Tal Brown and Eyal Eliakim as a proprietary AI startup, Zone7 has developed an AI platform committed to helping clients mitigate risk and reach full functionality. Through analyses of disparate datasets, its technology detects patterns, uncovers insights, and makes recommendations to optimize performance and prevent injuries. 

The platform can tackle the significant costs incurred by professional sports injuries ($40 billion per annum), as well as the large losses sustained by workplace injuries across the economy ($170 billion per annum), the statement said.

“Our product demonstrated its positive impact on athlete wellbeing and resilience throughout the COVID pandemic,” said Brown, who serves as Zone7 CEO. “With this new capital, we look forward to growing our team, doubling down on our success in sports, and continuing to scale Zone7 adoption in new sectors where fatigue, injury, or burnout carry significant risk,” he added.

Zone7 has already developed an extensive client portfolio in professional sports. It is currently used by elite organizations across the EPL, MLS, NFL, La Liga, Serie A, PRO14, Premiership Rugby, and other leagues. The technology is also applied to healthcare workforce management in hospitals.

Roger Mitchell, Executive Advisor to Zone7 and former CEO of the Scottish Premier League, said that he witnessed the “benefits that coaches, physios, hospital staff, and military personnel are deriving from Zone7, especially throughout the pandemic and its disruption of schedules, rest time and workload,” and that “Zone7 is in a fantastic position to scale, and we are excited to build a larger team to help realize that potential.”

The company said it achieved a strong year of client growth that quadrupled its number of professional sports clients across the US and Europe. It has also formed new partnerships across contact sports and cycling, expanded into more healthcare settings, and made strategic hires to support priorities including service delivery within soccer.

“Tal and his team have developed a truly unique machine learning risk management solution, one which complements our portfolio of AI and big data analysis companies,” said Bruce Taragin, Managing Director at Blumberg Capital and Zone7’s newest board member. “The company’s success stories in sports speak for themselves, and we look forward to working closely with the Zone7 team to expand into other areas of the economy and throughout their growth journey.”