Pitchwise was created by Philip Mortimer, Liam Jones and Jeremy Colfer when they were studying Computer Science at Bristol and playing football together.
Together they have created a system that combines a smartphone-mounted hardware device with AI-powered computer vision software that automatically follows play, generates highlights, and provides performance insights — aiming to recreate the same excitement seen in the Premier League for every local community club.
They have also developed an app which shares highlights, tracks stats, and bring matches to life - all in one platform for grassroots football.
Philip originally developed the foundation of the AI element of the project for his undergraduate dissertation, focusing on automated ball tracking. The next year, Jeremy and Liam further developed the idea building the hardware and companion app for their master’s theses, while Phil was at Cambridge studying for a masters in AI and Machine Learning. Now that all three have graduated, they’re back together working full time on Pitchwise.
The team have built and tested working prototypes with several local teams across Bristol and are now starting a much wider pilot programme. Alongside this, they have been refining their AI models for player tracking and collecting the crucial data needed to further advance them.
The Isambard-AI access (5,500 graphic processing unit hours, valued at £25,000) through the UKRI AI Research Resource [AIRR] programme supported by Innovate UK, will allow the Pitchwise team to train and scale their computer-vision models far beyond what’s possible on standard cloud hardware — enabling faster iteration, deeper analysis, and more advanced player recognition.
Liam Jones said: “As a University of Bristol spin-out, we’re now among the first startups in the UK to receive this type of award, and we’ll be using the university’s own flagship supercomputer to power our next stage of AI development for grassroots sports video analysis. This is a really nice full-circle story, starting as a student venture at Bristol, and now using the university’s world-leading infrastructure to advance our technology and mission. It’s a huge boost in our journey to bring cutting-edge AI to community sport.
“The University of Bristol has played a huge role in our journey. Coming through the Centre for Innovation and Entrepreneurship, we’ve had access to incredible mentors who’ve been through the startup process themselves and offered invaluable guidance. The prototyping labs there also allowed us to design and test our early hardware while still studying. On top of that, the Runway Programme has provided both financial support and the confidence to take Pitchwise from a student project to a growing business.”
The £225m Isambard-AI facility, built and run by Bristol Centre for Supercomputing in close partnership with HPE and NVIDIA, is able to process in one second what it would take the entire global population 80 years to achieve. It was officially launched in July this year.
Such impressive processing speeds offer capacity never seen before in the UK, allowing researchers and industry to harness the huge potential of AI in fields such as robotics, big data, climate research and drug discovery.
The supercomputer, which is based at NCC on the Bristol and Bath Science Park is a key part of the UK Government’s AI Research Resource (AIRR), alongside DAWN at Cambridge, and is intended to boost the country’s capabilities in responsible and cutting-edge AI development.