Kognia Sports Intelligence

What Kognia Sports Intelligence does

Kognia Sports Intelligence (legally Optima Sports Systems, S.L.) is a Barcelona-based football analytics vendor that sells AI-generated tactical data to professional clubs, academies, and national federations. Its platform automatically detects dynamic tactical events — covering both on-ball and off-ball actions — by combining tracking data and event data through a proprietary ecological-physics methodology developed from the co-founders' PhD research and earlier work at FC Barcelona's Methodology Department. The offering is organized into four modules — Player Monitoring (video-synchronized tactical insights), Performance Analysis, Scouting & Recruitment, and Youth Development & Player Pathways — and is delivered either through Kognia's web application or via an API/semantic layer (built on Cube and dbt atop BigQuery) that integrates with club BI tools such as Tableau and Power BI. The company also publishes JointDiff, a generative diffusion-based sports world model for tactical simulation, accepted at ICLR 2026.

Kognia operates a B2B enterprise go-to-market: pricing is quote-based and not publicly disclosed, contracts are structured as multi-year partnerships, and the company sells direct to clubs and federations globally. Its anchor commercial relationship is an extended multi-year partnership with La Liga club Deportivo Alavés spanning academy, women's team, and recruitment. The company has expanded service coverage to the US, UK, Europe, Asia, South America, and Australia and launched broader European competition coverage (Premier League, Bundesliga, La Liga) in March 2025 to support first-team recruitment. No institutional funding rounds have been disclosed.

The company is led by co-founders Maurici A. López-Felip (CEO) and Henry Harrison (CTO), with a full executive team including CFO Josep Moya, COO Michael Fitzgerald, CRO James Barber, and Head of AI Luis Ferraz. Kognia reports 11–50 employees and operates from Sant Just Desvern, Spain.

Name

Kognia Sports Intelligence

Legal name

Optima Sports Systems, SL

Website

https://kogniasports.com

Company type

Private

Founded year

2018

Operating status

Operating

Headcount range

11–50 employees

Short description

Kognia Sports Intelligence is a Barcelona-based AI football analytics vendor that sells automatically generated tactical data, including off-ball detection, to professional clubs, academies, and national federations via web platform and BI/API integrations.

Ownership category

akta.pro rank

Product category

Football Tactical Analytics Software

NAICS

Information (51), Spectator Sports (7112)

SIC

Services-Computer Integrated Systems Design (7373)

akta.pro primary industry

Sports Data, Analytics & CRM Services (Fan Data, Insights, Audience Development) (MPAKAKAO)

akta.pro secondary industries

Data Platforms, BI/Reporting & Player Analytics (CDP/Attribution) (MPAEAKAI), Sportsbook Trading, Odds & Feed Providers (MPAEAKAB)

Keywords

• Football tactical analytics
• AI scouting platform
• Sports performance data
• Player tracking software
• Football data analytics

Headquarters

HQ city

Barcelona

HQ country

Spain

HQ region

Europe

Offices2 records

Markets served

GTM type

B2B

Offering type

Software

Cost components

Technology or R&D, Personnel, Marketing or Sales, Infrastructure, Operations

Revenue model

1. Tactical Data Platform Subscription: Kognia provides tactical data through their proprietary platform with club-wide coverage, accessible via web application and API integration. The service includes player monitoring, performance analysis, and scouting reports.

Go-to-market motion2 records

Distribution channels3 records

Marketing channels6 records

Core offering

Kognia Sports Intelligence sells an AI-powered tactical data platform for professional football clubs and national federations. The platform automatically detects dynamic on-ball and off-ball tactical events from match tracking and event data, producing contextual performance, scouting and youth development insights synchronized with video, delivered through a proprietary web application and via an API/semantic data layer that connects to club BI tools and data warehouses.

Product overview

Kognia Sports Intelligence offers a unified tactical data platform for football clubs and national federations, combining AI-powered automatic event detection with ecological physics principles. The core product is the Kognia Tactical Data Platform, which provides automated detailed tactical data through a proprietary platform accessible via web app and API. The platform is organized into four key modules: Player Monitoring (video-synchronized tactical insights), Performance Analysis (multi-league data with customized templates), Scouting & Recruitment (club-wide tactical data for player evaluation), and Youth Development & Player Pathways (benchmarking against first-team standards). The Tactical Data Layer/Semantic Layer infrastructure enables access via BI tools (Tableau, Power BI), REST API, and GraphQL API. JointDiff is a generative AI model for trajectory simulation and tactical scenario analysis. Data is accessible through Kognia's proprietary platform, API feed, or integration within existing club technologies and workflows.

Differentiator

Problem solved

Functional benefit

Products and services

• Kognia Tactical Data Platform AI-powered proprietary platform that automatically detects dynamic tactical events from football matches, tracking both on-ball and off-ball player and team movements. Provides detailed, contextual tactical insights synchronized with video footage for performance analysis, scouting and recruitment, and youth development across academy and first-team levels, and is accessible via web application or API feed.
• Tactical Data Layer / Semantic Layer Infrastructure layer built on the Cube semantic layer technology on top of a BigQuery data warehouse with dbt transformations, enabling clubs to query Kognia tactical data through native BI connectors (Tableau, Power BI), REST API and GraphQL API. Provides consistent, governed metric definitions across all access methods with caching and pre-aggregation for performance, and allows clubs to pull data into their own warehouses for blending with proprietary datasets.
• JointDiff

Quantifiable outcome

• Kognia tactical data helps clubs assess and evaluate areas for recruitment decisions and identify realistic replacement targets
• +1 more outcomes

Named customers7 records

Segments3 records

Ideal customer profiles3 records

Technology focussed Yes

API detail

Has API

Yes

API docs

API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

Integration3 records

AI capability5 records

Feature5 records

Partnerships

Two partnerships are on record, tiered core.

• ESIC BarcelonacoreStrategic or Co-development Partner · 17 June 2026ESIC Barcelona and Kognia formalized a collaboration agreement to establish a framework for cooperation across training, talent development, applied research and knowledge transfer in sports data industry, applied analytics, data-driven decision-making and artificial intelligence. The agreement connects academic world with business ecosystem, facilitates student participation in real projects, promotes continuous knowledge updating, and fosters joint initiatives. ESIC provides employment and internship channels to Kognia, enables student participation in special projects, and integrates real company cases into subjects and workshops. Kognia participates in ESIC academic activities through conferences, specialized courses, and project mentorship.
• Deportivo AlavéscoreStrategic or Co-development Partner · 18 June 2025Extended and expanded multi-year partnership with La Liga club providing tactical data for strategic benchmarking and player development across all academy age groups, tactical data for women's team performance analysis, and implementation within recruitment and scouting department to inform decision-making in identifying and evaluating potential signings. Club reports that Kognia data has transformed the way they evaluate and develop talent, enabling clear and effective benchmarking strategy across every academy team.

Scale indicators2 records

Recent moves6 records

Expansion highlights6 records

Broad incumbents

• Tracab (Hawk-Eye Innovations / Sony): Tracab, within Hawk-Eye/Sony, provides official optical tracking data for top football leagues - a broad incumbent whose league-rights-based tracking feeds can compete with Kognia's tracking-derived tactical insights.
• Hudl: Hudl is the dominant sports video and analytics platform serving thousands of teams across multiple sports, now expanded into AI tracking and tactical tools - a broad incumbent that competes with Kognia for football club analytics budgets.
• Catapult Sports: Catapult provides GPS/wearable tracking, video, and athlete monitoring across elite team sports including football - a broad incumbent overlapping with Kognia's performance analysis and player monitoring use cases.
• Stats Perform (Opta): Stats Perform owns the Opta brand and distributes official football data feeds to clubs, media, and betting operators globally - a broad incumbent with rights-based distribution that competes for the same enterprise football analytics wallet.
• Genius Sports: Genius Sports combines official sports data feeds, betting technology, and sports media technology across football and other sports - a broad incumbent whose football data and tracking services compete with Kognia for league and club customers.

Direct peers

• StatsBomb: StatsBomb provides advanced football event and tracking data with a focus on contextual, frame-by-frame tactical analytics for clubs, federations, broadcasters, and betting operators - directly comparable to Kognia's football-tactical data offering.
• SkillCorner: SkillCorner provides AI-derived football tracking data (x-y coordinates, physical metrics) at broadcast quality from TV feeds - directly overlapping with Kognia's tracking-plus-event tactical data approach in football.
• Second Spectrum: Second Spectrum provides AI-powered tracking, spatial, and tactical analytics for elite football and basketball teams and broadcasters - directly comparable to Kognia's AI-driven tactical event detection and simulation product strategy.

Others

• Wyscout: Wyscout (now part of Hudl) provides football video analysis and scouting platforms used by clubs, agents, and federations worldwide - directly comparable to Kognia's scouting, recruitment, and video-linked tactical offerings.

Emerging players

• BePro: BePro provides AI-derived football tracking and event data from broadcast feeds to clubs, federations, and media - an emerging competitor with partial product overlap to Kognia's tracking-plus-tactical offering.

Market position

Strengths5 records

Weaknesses5 records

Competitive moat5 records

Key risks6 records

Key highlights6 records

Customer concentration

• LinkedInlinkedin.com/company/kogniasports
• Instagraminstagram.com/kognia_sports/?hl=en
• Xx.com/kognia_sports

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

Number of profiles

Profiles6 records

Funding overview

Funding rounds

Investors

Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

M&A

Investments

M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

Frequently asked questions about Kognia Sports Intelligence