BadPro+ is taking AI-powered coaching beyond badminton

Badminton may be one of the world’s most widely played sports, but for most players, detailed feedback on their performance remains difficult to access. Professional athletes can rely on coaches and analysts to break down matches shot by shot. Amateur and club players, meanwhile, often record their games on a phone, watch the footage once and move on without gaining much practical insight from it.

Estonian startup BadPro+ wants to close that gap by using artificial intelligence and computer vision to analyse match footage in much the same way a coach would.

“That gap is really where this started,” says BadPro+ CEO Abdelrahman Abdelhakim. “If a computer could watch a match the way a coach watches it, we could give that kind of insight to any player, not just the ones who can afford private coaching.”

From match video to actionable feedback

The idea behind BadPro+ is straightforward: a player records a match, uploads the footage and receives an AI-generated analysis shortly afterwards. The technology identifies shot types, rally patterns, court positioning and recurring mistakes. Instead of simply showing the final score or broad statistics, the aim is to highlight patterns that players themselves may struggle to notice.

“It tells you your backhand is weak in a certain zone, or that you keep leaving the same corner open, or that your shot choices change under pressure in a predictable way,” Abdelhakim explains.

This kind of analysis has traditionally required considerably more equipment and manual work. Only a few years ago, analysing a single match could mean several fixed cameras, manual tagging and hours of an analyst’s time. Developments in computer vision have changed that equation. Today, BadPro+ can work with footage captured using an ordinary phone positioned next to the court. AI can then track players, shots and the shuttle automatically.

“That drop in cost and complexity is really what changed everything,” Abdelhakim says. “What used to be something only national federations could afford is now something any club player can do after a Tuesday night match.”

Once people began using the product, the BadPro+ team also discovered that players were not only interested in analysing themselves. One of the more unexpected use cases was opponent scouting.

“The biggest surprise honestly was how much people wanted to use it on their opponents rather than just themselves,” Abdelhakim says.

Players began uploading footage of upcoming opponents to identify recurring patterns – for example, whether someone tends to use the same shot from a particular position. That behaviour changed how the company viewed its own technology.

“The real value here isn’t only self-improvement, it’s competitive intelligence, and that’s shaped a lot of what we’re building next.”

Tehnopol AI Accelerator helped sharpen the business

BadPro+ joined the Tehnopol AI Accelerator in spring 2025. At the time, the company already had a working prototype, but its business model and market positioning were still developing. Over the six-month programme, the team focused particularly on understanding how the same core technology needs to be presented differently to different customers.

“A player and a federation want completely different things from the same technology,” Abdelhakim says.

The accelerator also helped the company develop its network through mentors, fellow founders and new connections that later became relevant in funding discussions.

“By the time we finished that October, our ambitions had grown a lot beyond where we started.”

Those ambitions now extend well beyond an individual player analysing a badminton match.

From badminton app to sports infrastructure

BadPro+ currently has two main products: its player-facing application and a coach-player dashboard. But the company sees these as the starting point for a much broader platform.

For players, the goal is personalised coaching based on their own matches. Coaches could use the platform to analyse and develop several athletes simultaneously. Federations and tournament organisers could eventually use the same underlying technology for talent scouting, squad management, event operations and applications such as automated line calling.

“All these pieces run on the same core – video and AI working together,” Abdelhakim says.

His long-term ambition is for BadPro+ to become part of the underlying digital infrastructure of the sport rather than simply another standalone application.

“If we do this right, BadPro+ becomes something people rely on without even thinking about it much, the same way certain platforms became invisible infrastructure in other sports.”

Over the coming year, the company plans to test whether its technology can make the same transition across other racquet sports. Squash, padel, tennis, pickleball and table tennis are all on the roadmap.

“The core technology doesn’t really care what racquet someone’s holding,” Abdelhakim says.

At the same time, BadPro+ is developing a Federation Suite aimed at national and international sports organisations, offering tools for talent scouting, squad management and event operations.

Another planned business line is live data. The company is developing APIs that could allow broadcasters and streaming partners to integrate real-time match statistics into their coverage.

For Abdelhakim, the next stage of the company is therefore not defined by a single product launch. “It’s turning two products into several real business lines – the consumer app, the coach dashboard, federation tools and API access for broadcast partners – spread across multiple sports instead of just one.”

If that transition succeeds, BadPro+ may soon be a difficult company to describe simply as a badminton startup. As Abdelhakim puts it: “BadPro+ stops being a badminton company and starts being actual infrastructure across racquet sports.”

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