'A strong vote of confidence in Northern Ireland': US sports tech giant to expand Belfast engineering hub in AI and data push
North Carolina-headquartered Teamworks will grow its Belfast engineering team over the next three years, strengthening its global research and development capabilities in AI, data analytics and platform engineering, supported by Invest Northern Ireland funding
US tech company Teamworks will expand its Belfast engineering team over the next three years, advancing the company’s research and development in AI, data and platform capabilities.
The programme reflects Teamworks' confidence in Northern Ireland, recognising the region's exceptional engineering and technology talent as a core driver behind the company's decision to grow its Belfast team and advance its global AI and data capabilities.
Welcoming the investment during a visit to the company’s office at Ormeau Labs, Dr Vicky Kell, director of Innovation, Research and Development at Invest Northern Ireland said: “This investment by Teamworks is a strong vote of confidence in Northern Ireland’s growing strength in advanced software and sports technology.
"The project will focus on high-value research and development activity and help the company scale its innovative platform globally. Our support is helping this investment to drive cutting-edge development in areas such as AI and data analytics.”
The company is headquartered in Durham, North Carolina and employs 680 staff worldwide. It arrived in Northern Ireland after acquiring Kairos Sports Tech in 2023.
Gareth Quinn, general manager of EMEA at Teamworks said: “This investment is about evolving our platform alongside how modern athletic departments operate today. We are deepening the sport specific functionality our customers value, modernising the architecture to scale and integrate more deeply, and adding the AI and data capabilities that surface richer insight for our customers.”
Daniel Hendrie, director of engineering at Teamworks explained: “Northern Ireland has an exceptional pool of engineering and technology talent, and we've seen first-hand the quality of people we've been able to attract and the apprenticeship talent we've been able to grow. We're committed to continuing to grow our team here in Belfast. From an engineering perspective, what excites us most is the opportunity to layer AI capabilities directly on top of the rich data that already exists within the Teamworks operating system.
“Our customers have years of performance, compliance, scheduling and operational data sitting in Teamworks, and AI gives us the ability to surface insights from that data in ways that change how athletic organisations make decisions. This programme accelerates that work.”
Invest NI has offered the company £398,077 of financial support towards the R&D project.
Dr Vicky Kell continued: “Ahead of its 2023 acquisition, we supported Kairos Sports Tech to build its innovation capability and export readiness using emerging technologies.
"Now continuing our working relationship through Teamworks, projects like this are exactly the type of activity we want to support, combining advanced software development, AI and machine learning engineering, to drive clear commercial and export ambition.”
Gareth Quinn added: “When Teamworks acquired Kairos, a real strength of the acquisition was the calibre of the engineering team in Belfast and its ability to deliver at pace.
"This programme, which will continue our advancement of AI and data capabilities, reflects the confidence we placed in that team from day one and our long-term commitment to building something significant in Northern Ireland.”
Invest NI’s R&D support for this project is part funded by the UK Government Shared Prosperity Fund (SPF).