Dan Kerluke

Double Blue Sports Analytics, a Brunswick-based tech startup that developed video analytics applications for sports coaching, has been acquired by an out-of-state firm.

The acquirer, Upper Hand Inc., is an Indianapolis-based company that provides cloud-based sports management software and business services. It announced this week in a blog post that it had acquired Double Blue’s “video analysis technology,” which includes two products, CoachCast and the Save Review System (SRS).

Financial details of the deal are not being disclosed, according to Dan Kerluke, Double Blue’s co-founder and former CEO.

As a result of the deal, Double Blue will not remain in Maine, Kerluke said.

CoachCast and SRS are both video analysis tools that help sports coaches (in the case of SRS, specifically hockey goalie coaches) capture, manage, and analyze performance data about their players.

“Double Blue Sports pushes the boundaries of what is technologically possible while also fulfilling an immediate need within our target audience,” Kevin MacCauley, CEO and founder of Upper Hand, said in a statement. “Video analysis is the future and delivers a new pinnacle of innovation in athlete development. By integrating CoachCast and SRS within our business management platform, sports professionals will see a dramatic improvement in coaching capabilities while driving positive business results.”

Kerluke told Maine Startups Insider that he and his co-founder, Tim Westbaker, sold the company they co-founded in 2013 because Upper Hand has more resources to take it to the next level.

“We were profitable by a hair, kind of limping along,” Kerluke said. “We needed a larger partner to take it to the next level, we simply did not have enough resources.”

From coach to entrepreneur

Double Blue was born from Kerluke’s past experience as associate head coach of the University of Maine men’s ice hockey team. He and David Alexander, who was at the time the Black Bears’ part-time and volunteer goalie coach, came up with the idea for the company after being unsatisfied with the tools available to adequately analyze the performance of the team’s goalies. They partnered with Tim Westbaker, a recent UMaine graduate and computer programmer, to develop the idea, which eventually became the Save Review System.

Double Blue gained some early traction, with the technology being used by Sweden’s Olympic hockey team during the Sochi Olympics. (Read my early profile of the company in the Portland Press Herald.)

However, Kerluke quickly realized that the video analysis technology they’d developed could easily be applied to other sports, from baseball to soccer, which is how CoachCast was developed.

Over the years, the company received investment from Cornpoint Capital, based in Marblehead, Mass., and angel investors associated with the Bangor Angels and Maine Angels.

At the time of the acquisition, Double Blue had four employees. Alexander was no longer involved in day-to-day activities at the company, but Westbaker served as CTO until the acquisition. Kerluke said he has helped with the transition, but he’s already moved on to another job as sales director at Cirrus Systems in Saco.

Despite the fact the company will no longer be based in Maine, Kerluke considers it a successful exit.

“Over the last five years, we are very proud of what we have accomplished,” Kerluke told MSI. “Between the Swedish Olympic team, several NHL teams, the NHL Network, and eight different sports using the platform, managing over 125,000 videos in the cloud, we have learned a ton on what it takes to bring an idea to market and commercialize the concept. We are excited to pass the puck to UpperHand so they continue to push our tech stack further into the sports market.”