A group of childhood friends from Milwaukee has taken a love for playing basketball and turned it into an international company.
Milwaukee-based sports technology startup
huupe, founded in 2019, has created what it calls the world’s first smart basketball hoop.
Each huupe allows users to play against one another remotely while also offering features like streaming and shot tracking.
Brothers
Paul and
Franki Anton, along with childhood friend
Lyth Saeed, are the masterminds behind huupe.
The Anton brothers, along with family and friends, would play basketball virtually via Snapchat. Each participant would record shots and send them between one another. This allowed players to participate globally.
“That was really the genesis of the idea, to be able to play basketball against one another from all parts of the world,” said
Paul Anton.
His first thought was that it would make sense to create an app that could be used through virtual reality glasses to play basketball. Saeed was the person who first pitched to idea of taking the technical aspect of the game and transitioning it into a physical basketball hoop.
Saeed has experience as a startup founder, previously creating a luxury rideshare app and co-founding an artificial intelligence recruitment startup in California.
“I have good experience in tech and building out tech teams, so that’s the experience I brought to the table,” said Saeed.
It took the company five years to bring its flagship huupe product to market. A small team made up of engineers built the first huupe prototype in-house.
“We had no idea how to build a computer before we started this,” said Anton. “We were just passionate and figured it out. Inside the huupe is a whole computer – the first of its kind that we built.”
There are no true competitors to huupe and the company’s patented technology, said Anton. This has allowed the company to rely on in-person demonstrations and social media to grow its following organically.
Huupe has even garnered the attention of several NBA players, like Atlanta Hawks player Dyson Daniela and Miam Heat player Tyler Herro. Professionals often opt to buy a huupe Pro, which is ideal for homes or outdoor courts.
“We’re really doing something that just hasn’t been done before, and that’s what is really spurring our growth,” said Saeed.
Huupe has nearly quadrupled in size every year of its existence, according to Anton. The startup has orders in more than 30 countries. To date, huupe has raised $11 million in funding.
“We have clients all over the world now,” said Anton.
Huupe continues to bring new products to market, recently launching a mini version of its smart basketball hoop. The huupe mini has all the features of a full-size product but can be placed in easily accessible places like a bedroom or living room.
“We grew up playing on mini hoops ourselves back in the day and we created the world’s first digital version of it,” said Anton. “It really connects people. You can see each other on the leaderboards.”
The lineup of huupe products has varying price points, ranging from $599 to $9,995.
Among the startup’s biggest goals is achieving profitability, but the huupe brand could soon be expanding into new sports like soccer.
“We have about five soccer products in the pipeline,” said Saeed. “We’re just going to keep cranking out cool things.”
