AI-Driven Sports Coaching App Mustard Raises $3.75 Million Seed Funding Round

Decerry Donato

Decerry Donato is a reporter at dot.LA. Prior to that, she was an editorial fellow at the company. Decerry received her bachelor's degree in literary journalism from the University of California, Irvine. She continues to write stories to inform the community about issues or events that take place in the L.A. area. On the weekends, she can be found hiking in the Angeles National forest or sifting through racks at your local thrift store.

Images of the AI sports coaching app Mustard.​
Courtesy of Mustard

Rocky Collis grew up playing baseball—but once he hung up his cleats to become an attorney, he found that his passion for sports still needed to be filled. He found some of that fulfillment by watching his younger brother Luke, a quarterback, train with renowned throwing mechanics guru Tom House.


Those sessions gave birth to Mustard, which was founded in 2019 by the Collis brothers, House and performance coach Jason Goldsmith. Mustard is a sports training app that allows users to capture their training on video via their mobile devices, evaluates their mechanics and performance and provides them with coaching and feedback on how to improve.

\u200bRocky Collis, CEO of Mustard.

Rocky Collis, CEO of Mustard.

Courtesy of Mustard

On Tuesday, the Los Angeles-based startup (which is not to be confused with the food video app of the same name) announced that it has raised a $3.75 million seed funding round led by the Lake Nona Sports & Health Tech Fund. The round included investors from across the world of sports like Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban, NFL legend Ronnie Lott and pro golfer Justin Rose, who joined existing investors like former NFL quarterback Drew Brees and baseball legend Nolan Ryan.

The funding takes Mustard’s total capital raised to $6 million. That money will be used to grow the startup’s tech team, and expand its training offerings beyond its core sport of baseball and into football, golf, soccer, tennis and basketball.

While Major League Baseball pitchers are among those who use Mustard, Collis said the app’s target audience is adolescent athletes who are just learning their craft.

“If we can get this technology and elite coaching in the hands of kids when they're a little bit younger than 14, we think that's where we can really make a difference in their lives and help them keep playing sports that they're passionate about longer than they otherwise would,” Collis told dot.LA.

Mustard will also offer its users mental performance training, in the form of live and recorded content led by Goldsmith and other advisors.

Unlike other sports training offerings, Mustard offers most of its features at no cost. While it plans to add premium features for a subscription fee in the coming months, “the soul of the company is to help kids regardless of resources, and that's what we're going to continue to do,” Collis said.

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LA Venture: Fifth Wall's Dan Wenhold On Real Estate Technology Investing

Decerry Donato

Decerry Donato is a reporter at dot.LA. Prior to that, she was an editorial fellow at the company. Decerry received her bachelor's degree in literary journalism from the University of California, Irvine. She continues to write stories to inform the community about issues or events that take place in the L.A. area. On the weekends, she can be found hiking in the Angeles National forest or sifting through racks at your local thrift store.

LA Venture: Fifth Wall's Dan Wenhold On Real Estate Technology Investing
Courtesy of LA Venture

On this episode of the LA Venture podcast, Fifth Wall partner Dan Wenhold talks about his role at the firm and shares some of the changes he’s seeing in real estate technology investing.


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AI Isn’t Taking Your Job, Yet. But It Might Be Recruiting for It

Samson Amore

Samson Amore is a reporter for dot.LA. He holds a degree in journalism from Emerson College and previously covered technology and entertainment for TheWrap and reported on the SoCal startup scene for the Los Angeles Business Journal. Send tips or pitches to samsonamore@dot.la and find him on Twitter @Samsonamore.

AI Isn’t Taking Your Job, Yet. But It Might Be Recruiting for It
Evan Xie

Staffing firm Robert Half (which operates numerous offices across Los Angeles, including Burbank, Irvine, Long Beach and Pasadena), parses through thousands of job applications a week.

Thomas Vick, regional director of technology for the company, said Robert Half has a database of over 30 million active job seekers, which is why lately it’s been using AI to sift through them all. Vick is one of many directors eager to explore AI’s capacity to streamline hiring as the technology becomes more mainstream.

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https://twitter.com/samsonamore
samsonamore@dot.la

Don't Ask Chatbots for Movie Pitches. WGA Goes on Strike to Keep Hollywood Human

Lon Harris
Lon Harris is a contributor to dot.LA. His work has also appeared on ScreenJunkies, RottenTomatoes and Inside Streaming.
Don't Ask Chatbots for Movie Pitches. WGA Goes on Strike to Keep Hollywood Human
Evan Xie

This is the web version of dot.LA’s daily newsletter. Sign up to get the latest news on Southern California’s tech, startup and venture capital scene.

On this week’s “Succession,” Roman Roy flew to Burbank and met with the head of Waystar Studios, pressing them to greenlight more IP-driven films from major franchises. In the show’s fictional alternate reality, Roy is reacting specifically to the looming failure of sleepy robot-themed sci-fi tentpole “Kalispitron,” and the desperate short-term need to artificially boost the company’s stock price. Still, the scene itself has strong roots in our current business landscape. With media, telecom, and tech companies having recently spent billions creating and selling consumers on shiny new streaming platforms, they now need to actually deliver the quality content they’ve spent the last few years promising and promoting.

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