NFL Star Jonathan Taylor Invests In Sports Tech Company Strive's $6M Series A Funding Round

The round was led by venture capital firm Future Communities Capital, along with previous investors including SeaChange Fund and SeedtoB Capital, per the outlet. Among the new investors were Taylor and former NFL quarterback Troy Smith. The new funding will go toward expanding Strive’s staff, investing in sales and marketing efforts, and improving its platform.

While its valuation is undisclosed, the data platform has raised a total of $10.5 million.

Launched in 2016, Strive works to deliver accurate muscle data for athletes and teams. According to the outlet, the data platform “has sensors that can be inserted into compression clothing and track muscle activity to measure fatigue, load symmetry and other variables.” Additionally, it has a platform dedicated to assisting athletes with their training, recovering from injuries, and avoiding further ones. Its chief executive and co-founder Nikola Mrvaljevic started the company after seeing that college coaches were receptive to how he believed he could be a part of helping them improve performance through data.

“When 42 of them responded and invited me on-site, that’s when I realized I might be on to something,” he said, according to the outlet. “That moment where coaches related to our vision and were able to validate our value proposition is something where we realized, ‘OK, this is real.’ I didn’t spend too much time, if any, having an internal negotiation with myself whether I wanted to pursue this product. I was very committed right off the bat because of that validation and interest from coaches.”

“Our mission always is to empower players and coaches, and our mission is to make sure that they understand the data sets,” Mrvaljevic said. “We are very focused on making sure the customer, whether its an athlete or whether it’s a coach or a military operator, that they’re focused on understanding what is the data telling them…It’s really important for all of us to aspire to digest this data in the simplest and easiest to understand terms. That’s something we’re trying to improve on a constant basis.”