SpartaNova NV

Performance progression and injury prevention in sports

SpartaNova is a joint VUB/UGent spin-off, incorporated in July 2010, whose mission is to provide professional, science-based guidance to sports practitioners of all levels, with the aim of improving their performance and reducing the risk of injuries.

The company builds upon know-how generated during the last 10-15 years both at UGent and the VUB, and uses sport-specific, proprietary tests in combination with a large benchmarking database to enable both the evaluation of athletic performance and potential as well as recommend appropriate tailored training schemes.

The SpartaNova project idea originated within the UGent research groups of Professors Erik Witvrouw, Renaat Philippaerts, and Matthieu Lenoir, and was further incubated through close collaboration with Dr. Roel Vaeyens, an IOF-funded business developer associated with these groups. They were later joined by the VUB research team of Prof. Romain Meeusen, an internationally recognized authority in sports physiology and injury prevention.

SpartaNova positions itself as a product company, offering a web platform for physiotherapists, trainers and coaches to mediate the rollout towards the client, i.e. the sports practitioner. In practice, the athlete is tested several times a year by his or her SpartaNova certified supervisor, who enters the results in the SpartaNova software. Through standardized tests, evaluations and benchmarks, the athlete receives a personalized training program to improve his or her sports performance and reduce the incidence of injury. The system will also warn the athlete in the case of over- or undertraining. SpartaNova completes this offering with an online journal providing state-of-the art professional sports guidance accessible for all.

Investors in the company include the Baekeland II fund, an UGent-associated seed capital provider, and a number of Business Angels. Altogether, over € 1.1 Mio has been raised, laying a good foundation for further development and commercialization of this knowledge.

SpartaNova’s main assets are:

1. The unique product profile (no competitor can offer the combination of multisport test programs,benchmarking database, injury prevention and training schemes under the form of a scalable web platform).
2. The business model based on indirect sales via certified partners, thus reaching a maximum numberof sportspeople with a lean SpartaNova team.
3. The strength of the core team, tightly supported by the scientific founders and their academic groups.

In the coming years, the SpartaNova team has the ambition to add value by growing along three axes:

• Number of sports disciplines: Increasing from a ‘core’ of football and cycling to include other sports (tennis, running, hockey etc.)
• Geographically: Rollout in Belgium from 2011 onwards, moving to the Netherlands in 2012, and later to Germany, France and the UK.
• Product scope: Progressing towards a total concept of assistance to sports practitioners, including nutritional and psychological advice.

SpartaNova NV
Technologiepark 3
9052 Gent
Belgium
[T] +32 (0)9 241 57 04
[W] www.spartanova.com
[E] info@spartanova.com