Peripheral Labs uses self-driving car sensors to bring gamers into the game

Several reports indicate that watching live sports he is he refused in some sports, especially among Gen Z. To solve this problem, players and broadcasters are trying to make sports more interesting for fans with different visuals, statistics, and analysis.

One way to do this is to use volumetric videos that allow users to view the game from different angles, giving you the opportunity to play video games. Medium technology uses multiple cameras to capture 3D images so that everyone can see them from different angles. From Canada Peripheral Labs they want to make this technology affordable for players and teams to reach more broadcasters and fans.

Peripheral Labs was founded by Kelvin Cui and Mustafa Khan in 2024. Both have worked on driverless cars for the University of Toronto team, winning several awards. Khan has worked in research at Huawei, and Cui has experience working on chassis systems as a software engineer at Tesla.

“Mustafa and I are big sports fans. He has been a big fan of Arsenal, and I grew up watching the Vancouver Canucks since I was seven years old. When Mustafa showed me his research on 3D reconstruction, my brain said it would be cool to watch hockey like this (in a free, multi-dimensional way). This is how we started Peripheral Labs, said Cuich Labs.

The company said the concept of volumetric production is not new. But with new forms of AI and advances in computer vision, its founders are confident that the technology is ready for the masses.

The duo is using their experience with self-driving cars to apply robotics concepts and 3D vision to reconstructing 3D animations for games. The system can reduce the camera’s requirements from 100 to 32, which helps reduce cost and performance, according to Cui and Khan. The startup wants to keep hardware costs as low as possible for teams and advertisers and sign multi-year contracts for its platform.

The software will bring the biomechanical data of the players and statistics of the teams and the players using its sensor stack, which is similar to the sensors in self-driving cars that record the action in detail. It will enable new ways to improve sports viewing for broadcasters and fans using 3D reconstruction technology. For example, if fans want to follow a football player themselves, they can do that. They can also pause a game to see different angles on a bad or difficult game.

“Although we are working with external cameras, our positioning and experience in robotics and ML is what gives us the edge in terms of platforms and scaling from small stadiums to large football and soccer fields,” said Cui.

On the software side, the platform said it can monitor various interactions, including the player’s finger movements, to measure flexibility. For example, in the video above of two people playing football (soccer), the system measures the bending of the knees and ankles. This can give coaches more ideas about the players’ physical condition and flexibility, and help them improve.

The startup has raised $3.6 million in seed funding led by Khosla Ventures, with participation from Daybreak Capital, Entrepreneurs First, and Transpose Platform.

Joe Ros, a partner at Entrepreneurs First, noted that the fund was surprised by the number of followers the startup and its autonomous driving group had with the University of Toronto. He added that investors are often hesitant to invest in gaming-related startups, but Peripheral Labs is an interesting game.

“The most authentic are consumers, and their needs for sports are evergreen, not cyclical.” With Peripheral, the new standard of use will be deep, volumetric video. And the work they are doing now in gaming will give them the data, technology, and delivery moat to be the only person in the market able to support this,” he told TechCrunch via email.

Peripheral Labs said the startup selects VCs to bring in, which can help in various areas such as product development and go-to-market consulting. The company has 10 engineers on its staff and wants to increase the number of people by focusing on platform and hardware development to reduce the company’s costs, reduce system delays, and increase 3D reconstruction.

The startup has not publicly announced who it is working with, but is said to be in talks with several teams and players in North America. The company competes with other startups such as Pictures by Arcturus Studios in volumetric imaging of sports.