Introducing StepOut

We’re pleased to announce our investment in StepOut, a football analytics company from Kolkata offering practical tools to help teams, coaches, and players enhance their performance.

We believe that StepOut’s platform can truly be revolutionary in transforming the Football ecosystem in India- not just at professional levels, but also by facilitating ecosystem-building through enabling coaching at junior levels.

The platform is simple and easy to use. It allows users to upload match videos and quickly receive player-specific analytics. With features like auto-tagging and individual dashboards, players can track their progress, and scouts can remotely evaluate talent.

By making performance data more accessible, StepOut is helping to bridge the gap for grassroots players. Their approach is affordable and scalable, offering a resource that was once limited to elite clubs. Their vision is to create a dynamic sporting SAAS ecosystem fuelled by the power of event data and video-backed performance analysis.

We’re happy to note that they’ve overcome geographical boundaries, becoming the first Asian company to generate performance event data in football, democratizing a field previously limited to elite football clubs and academies.

We believe this technology will help open up more opportunities for footballers across India and beyond.

Here’s Jeet Karmakar, and Sayak Ghosh the co-founders of StepOut, talking about their motivation for building the company and their journey:

How it started

StepOut was born out of a question that kept bothering us for years. In a country with 1.4 billion people, why hasn’t India produced the players that can dominate on the global stage?

Once hailed as the “Brazil of Asia” after the Asian Championship win, the glory days of Indian football have faded, with the national ranking now languishing around 120th.

Beyond cricket, India barely dominates in other sports, including events in the Olympics. We are yet to become a “sporting” nation.

While talent is abundant, there’s no means of identifying them at the right age and providing a measurable pathway. Although we had shared the pitch with many exceptional talents throughout our childhood days, unfortunately, none of them got the chance to realize their dreams.

We knew something had to change. We realized that just as students use grades to understand their strengths and weaknesses in school, athletes lack the same data-driven feedback to help them grow. If we could just create a data-driven footprint of all such talents across the country, it could then initiate a digitized scouting system while enabling a clear measure of progress!

This was the spark that led to StepOut.

Let’s revisit the problem

Without data, every decision feels like a gamble.

Coaches often rely on visual memory, instinct, and intuition when developing talent. They must manually collect data, clip videos, and prepare presentations to provide feedback or run analyses. This process takes days, leaving them with little to no time for what truly matters—reflecting on insights and strategizing.

Sports scouting is largely visual, leading to significant talent wastage. Every player’s hope of making it on the professional stage is limited to that one fine day when a scout is present. Unfair right?

But here’s the thing: data-driven analysis has been present—it’s just been restricted to only the top 1% of the pyramid. Meanwhile, grassroots players and coaches—the ones who need it the most—are left in the dark due to the lack of proper frameworks and the high cost of these technologies.

And for the ones who can afford it, they are provided with exhaustive, granular data, which requires data scientists and analysts to decipher.

And this is not only an Indian problem, it is a global problem across sports!

That’s where we come in…

StepOut brings top-tier performance analysis to everyone. We aim to provide a technology that should be accessible and affordable at scale.

Simply upload a match video, and our AI tracks every player and event with 99% accuracy. What once took 3-4 days now takes just a few hours, saving coaches 80% of their time so they can focus on strategy while StepOut handles the tedious work.

Once the data is collected, it’s processed through advanced machine learning, statistical, and mathematical models to translate raw numbers into football insights. Even if you’ve never touched a data-sheet in your life, our easy-to-use, interactive dashboards turn complex stats into clear, actionable insights.

Our platform includes a web application for clubs and a mobile app for players, creating an ecosystem where clubs and academies can interact with players, set objectives, track progress, and boost motivation through in-app leaderboards, achievements, and badges.

It’s more than just analysis—we’re creating a digitized gameplay experience that drives players to reach the next level. It’s like playing FIFA, but in real life, with themselves.

Initially, when we used to reach out to international clubs, we would often encounter this question, “Does India even play football?”

Then we won the Reimagine Football Innovation Competition hosted by UEFA, Ajax, and City Football Group—becoming the first Asian company to do so. That moment put us on the global map, opening doors and shattering the preconceptions of what Indian tech could achieve. Currently, we are present in 12+ countries and are empowering clubs such as Ajax, Rayo Vallecano, and Bengaluru FC.

Here is what’s next…

No talent should slip through the cracks, regardless of where it comes from.

We’re creating a platform where athletes and coaches can not only track their progress but also connect with each other and explore talent identification through our digital scouting network.

Imagine a world where a player from a remote village in Mizoram has the same chance to get discovered and play for a team in Bengaluru, or even Spain! We’re not just dreaming it—we’re making it happen!

StepOut is transforming sports with a digital ecosystem that mirrors the excitement of e-sports while empowering players, coaches, and scouts with data-driven decision-making.

Football is just the beginning. As we embark on the journey of transforming today’s prodigies into tomorrow’s icons, we envision empowering many other sports such as hockey, basketball, and cricket.