'Traffic master' drives forward new golf venture - News - Hi-tech - Business Weekly

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'Traffic master' drives forward new golf venture

Written by Sam Fountain
Wednesday, 27 February 2008
The mastermind behind multi-million pound vehicle tracking system firm, Trafficmaster, has applied his wireless expertise to a new venture, making a slightly tangential move into the world of golf. David Martell, famous for employing satellite navigation systems to track fleet cars and turning £2.4m of VC money into a £20m return for investors, has used his knowledge of wireless technology to create a unique means of generating mementoes for the world’s golfers. After a recent £800k show of faith from Oxford Capital Partners, Teepix is taking its model to the States’ most prestigious golf courses, boasting projections from its business plan that value the company at £50m within three years. Working with his partner and golf enthusiast, Tony Rhodes, Martell has developed a network of inconspicuous cameras which take action shots of golfers on the course and make them available as keepsakes to show friends and family. “The idea began seven or eight years ago when my partner, an avid golf fan, was upset that he didn’t have a memento to remember a particularly fine round,” said Martell. “We thought about how we could develop a system to do just that, providing memories for people as they play the world’s finest courses.” While the idea may have germinated in Rhodes, it was Martell’s wireless knowhow which has taken the technology from a lab in Bedford, where Teepix has a base, to the world’s fairways. “I’ve got a technology background, so we developed the technology over a period of a year or so, got the patents, and set up a trial scheme in a golf resort here in Bedford.” With 59 per cent of all the world’s golf courses situated with the US, the company quickly realised that their biggest market was on the other side of the Atlantic. “We recognised that the big opportunity was in the States. Close to 50 per cent of all major golf resorts are in the States and people tour around to play golf more so than in Europe. A year ago we set up a trial project in the states, and then we moved to one of the major courses over the summer, a place called Doral in Miami, and it’s gone from there,” said Martell. The system works by utilising a network of digital cameras around a golf course, near the tee-offs. The cameras are positioned at an angle to the ball-to-target line and behind the tee box, capturing both the classic moment of impact and the golfer teeing off, surrounded by the course’s well groomed environment. Teepix’s patented trigger system recognises characteristic teeing off sound, sending an instant a radio signal to activate the cameras. The resulting images, which capture the ball, frozen in full flight just milliseconds after impact, are then transferred over a digital data link and the Internet to the TEC (Teepix Editing Center) in Bedford, where professional automatic enhancement and quality control measures ensure the excellence of the photographs produced. The finished laboratory quality pictures are then relayed to a dedicated terminal in the clubhouse and displayed on this website ready for the golfers to view and purchase at the end of their round. “The people in the States are always fascinated to learn that the picture they are about to buy has been to the UK, cropped, edited, and sent back to them all within a few minutes,” Martell said. “It’s quite a selling point.” When asked about the reasoning behind maintaining a base in Bedford, which doesn’t boast a global reputation for its golfing excellence, Martell explained the company’s affinity for the region. “The way the technology works, with the internet, it could be based anywhere, and the key personnel in the project are based in the locality, this is our home really,” he said. Funding in the early stages came from within the company, but last November saw an £800k contribution from Oxford Capital Partners’ Oxford Gateway Funds which will be used to roll out the technology to around 100 key golf resorts. “We raised money through OCP in November and we’re rolling out in the next three years to about a hundred resorts in the states and other parts of the world, with 20-25 new resorts in the USA the plan for this year.” Martell said that the funding will be sufficient for the company’s current expansion plans, but if the technology takes off it may look for further funding to accelerate its growth. “It depends on how things go, but if we want to expand more quickly we might need more funding maybe in a year or so, but as it stands we have no plans for additional money,” he said. “I’m very optimistic about the company’s growth because it’s very scaleable. The limiting factors are just the number of how many courses could we install, and there’s no reason why we couldn’t install in several thousand courses.” “Our game plan is to grow it rapidly, maybe float it in perhaps three years or so, which would give us the funds to further expand on six continents. I’ve been through an IP before and I think this is something that could go that way as well.” Set as favorite Bookmark Email This Hits: 385 Trackback(0) TrackBack URI for this entry Comments (0) Subscribe to this comment's feed Show/Hide comments Write comment Show/Hide comment form This content has been locked. You can no longer post any comment.