The Twins’ Growing Home Team
The Minnesota Twins created a startup accelerator to support and promote local entrepreneurship in Minnesota, as well as find opportunities to collaborate with startups to make the club a leading innovator in sports and entertainment. The program in turn educates entrepreneurs on successful business practices.
“Our hope is that we can not only internalize and find benefits for the Twins,” explains Twins senior vice president Jason Lee, “but also help the industry at large and help shape the future.”
The team chose Colorado-based investment firm Techstars to manage the accelerator, selecting applicants from around the world. In November, the accelerator announced its third cohort of 10 startups, only three of which were Minnesota-based. As the cohort wound down in February, several of those startups announced plans to make the state their permanent home.
Jonathan Sperger grew up in Minnesota before founding GUDEA, a Maryland-based startup that uses AI to predict the spread of viral information online and track related disinformation. According to Sperger, the increased access to experts in various aspects of business is a resource he had never really seen.
“Everyone [at the Twins] works together and knows each other,” says Sperger. “While the Twins have such a large organization that spans a lot of different departments, many people have worked across different areas, and they understand the exact problems we are trying to fix.”
Another member of this year’s cohort, The Playbook, will relocate to Minnesota from Atlanta. It offers programming and resources to optimize athlete practices and improve team culture.
Previous cohorts have prompted relocations to Minnesota as well, according to Techstars spokesperson Jack Buttacavoli. However, with the newest transfers, this year’s cohort has a record number of local startups:
- Camperoni, a marketing platform to promote camps and activities for kids.
- Refr Sports, which offers referee management and networking opportunities.
- SportsVision, an AI video analysis platform that provides strategies to improve athlete performance.
Sperger says the local business community, with its 15 Fortune 500 companies, makes Minnesota a supportive environment for startups eager to learn.
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Sperger also says he is looking forward to becoming a resource for future cohorts looking to plant roots in Minnesota. “When you move here, it’s kind of scary. Being able to be a resource for them, at least for me personally, that’s very important.”
