From GPS DataViz to Whistle Performance: Our Next Chapter

Today, I'm excited to announce that GPS DataViz is becoming Whistle Performance, and we've secured $2 million in seed funding to accelerate our mission of powering the future of human performance.

In sports, a whistle signals when to start and when to stop, when to push harder or pull back. Throughout my career as a player and coach, I heard that whistle thousands of times. Today, the whistle signals our next chapter.

This isn't just a name change. It's a reflection of where we've been, who we've become, and where we're headed next.

For all the details on our rebrand and seed funding round, check out the official press release →

How we got here

I took a winding path to founding this company. I set out to be a professional soccer player, but injuries (and lack of talent) ended my playing career during college. When I couldn't play anymore, my coach hired me as his assistant. That forced perspective shift—from individual player to team leader—planted the first seed for what would become this company. After college, I traded commodity derivatives for years before coaching eventually pulled me back.

The specific idea for our platform came while I was an assistant coach with Colorado College's women's soccer program. Our strength coach, Kevin Cronin (now our VP of Performance Science), spent hours after every practice producing detailed reports. When Kevin left, our new strength coach couldn't replicate his process. Our head coach said, "You're good with numbers. Take a look."

I followed Kevin's manual process for two days. On day three, I automated it. When I showed Kevin the result (click a button, instant report), his response was immediate: "Are you a wizard? How did you do that?" He said he knew 50 people off the top of his head who needed a solution like this.

That was the lightbulb moment. Some of those 50 people became our earliest beta customers in fall 2021, over a year before we hired our first full-time employee. Most are still customers today. Proof that our foundation was solid from day one, and we've been building on it ever since.

Why Whistle Performance?

The simple answer is that we outgrew GPS DataViz.

When we started, our first customer had GPS and heart rate tracking. For the first year, we primarily analyzed GPS data. Hence the name. But as we refined our product, we kept expanding what we could do. Today, we have over 80 different integrations. We work with any data source our customers are tracking, from force plates to wellness questionnaires to body composition to testing systems.

The old name created confusion. Some people thought we were a GPS provider, but we're not a hardware company. Others thought we just created visualizations. We do more than that.

Our platform uses AI, machine learning, and other proprietary technologies to generate insights for hyper-personalized training, reduced injury risk, and real-time performance management. We tell you what matters and what doesn't. We isolate the 10% of information that actually moves the needle.

That's why we're the whistle. We tell you when to stop and when to go faster based on your data. Coaches don't need more charts. They need answers. We deliver the insights that drive action in seconds.

What sets us apart

We're not just an athlete management system. We're a Sports and Human Performance Platform. Here's what that means:

• Hardware-agnostic: We work with any GPS system, heart rate monitor, force plate, or other testing equipment you're already using. You're not locked into specific vendors or forced to change your existing setup.

• Metric-agnostic: Different sports track different metrics. So do different professions. Whether you're measuring sprint distance for a soccer player or heart rate recovery for a firefighter, we adapt to what matters for your specific use case.

• Insight-driven: We don't just show you sleek charts and dashboards. We automate the analysis that traditionally takes hours and deliver actionable insights in seconds. We tell you what the data means and what you should do about it.

• Built for scale: From high school programs to NFL teams, from a single athlete to 100+ professionals, our platform grows with you without adding complexity.

Performance beyond athletics 

We started in collegiate athletics and have since expanded to work with some of the most elite programs in professional sports, including the NFL’s Pittsburgh Steelers, the NHL’s Toronto Maple Leafs, the NWSL’s Orlando Pride, and perennial NCAA Champions University of South Carolina Women's Basketball. 

During South Carolina Women's Basketball’s historic 2024 season, Sports Performance Coach Molly Binetti put it like this: "They handle the data complexity so I can keep my focus on coaching and winning games." That's the impact we're making at the highest levels—helping elite athletes perform at their best.

But the principles that optimize elite athletic performance apply far beyond the playing field. Think about first responders who face physical demands comparable to those of professional athletes every single day. Manufacturing workers whose safety depends on managing fatigue throughout demanding shifts. Military personnel who must maintain peak readiness under extreme stress.

These aren't athletes in the traditional sense, but they are performers who need to be ready when it matters most:

• First responders need immediate injury risk assessment and readiness insights because seconds matter when lives are on the line.

• Factory workers need fatigue monitoring and recovery optimization because even a momentary lapse in performance can lead to serious injury.

• Military personnel need load management and performance tracking because mission success depends on human performance under demanding operational conditions.

While the AI conversation is dominated by fears of technology replacing people, we're using AI to empower people. We're not automating jobs away—we're using data analytics and machine learning to help people stay healthy, perform better, and achieve their goals.

Our commitment to you

Whether you're a current customer or considering working with Whistle Performance, here's what you can count on: a tool that helps you harness technology to improve human outcomes. 

That's been our mission from day one, and it will remain our north star no matter how much we grow.

If you're already with us, you'll notice a new logo and a new name. What's not changing is our commitment to you. Some of you took a chance on us when we were a startup that might not have made it. This rebrand and this funding are our way of saying: we're not going anywhere. We're only getting bigger and stronger.

If you're considering Whistle Performance for your program, here's what we promise: we'll automate the analysis that traditionally takes hours and deliver the actionable insights you need to make game-time decisions. And we'll be here for the long haul as your partner in performance optimization.

The whistle is blowing. The game is about to start. And we're ready to help you perform at your best when it matters most.

To our early customers who believed in us from the beginning: you helped us get here, and no matter how big we get, you'll always be part of this story. 

To our team, our investors, and my family: building a company is never a solo endeavor; this milestone belongs to all of us.

Here's to what's next. Get ready to perform!

—Marc

Ready to join us on this journey?

See Whistle Performance in action: Visit our features page to learn how our platform helps you move from data overload to actionable insights in seconds.

Read the full announcement: Get all the details on our rebrand and seed funding in our official press release.

Follow along: Connect with us on LinkedIn and Instagram as we expand into new verticals and continue powering the future of human performance.