John

Experience Racquet Sports Like Never Before with Volley’s Revolutionary AI-Enhanced Ball Machine

Volley
A new sports tech startup, Volley, aims to revolutionize the way racquet sports players (platform tennis, padel, and pickleball) train with its AI-enabled sports training machine. You can also digitally control the machine by tapping on your phone to select where you want the ball to land. As an avid platform tennis player, John came up with the idea for Volley when he decided to put a tennis ball machine up on painter sticks to mimic certain shots. “Volley is in a category on its own because the ball trainers of yesterday are no longer meeting the needs of players and pros. On the long-term roadmap, the company says it wants to start leasing trainers to individual players who have at-home courts.

“Former Metaswitch Chief Executive John Lazar Joins Copia Board as Kenyan E-Commerce Enterprise Rakes in $20 Million to Drive Profitability”

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Kenyan e-commerce and fintech platform for mass market consumers Copia Global has appointed John Lazar, the ex-CEO of Metaswitch, a Microsoft subsidiary, to its board off the back of $20 million in new funding. Without the capital to get it all the way to profitability, it made sense to hold off there. Both companies have encountered headwinds that question the sustainability of B2C e-commerce in Africa even though they operate different e-commerce models. However, both platforms are confronted with distinct objectives: Copia strives to achieve profitability in a single market, Kenya, while Jumia has to battle it out across 11 markets. The founder and chairman noted that once the e-commerce company achieves profitability in the East African market, it plans to extend operations to 14 other countries it has strategically mapped out.