Maker of ‘Smart’ Basketball Files for Bankruptcy Protection

The Massachusetts start-up behind the 94Fifty Smart Sensor Basketball, which is advertised as the world’s first smart basketball whose sensors transmit ball-handling data to a smartphone, filed for bankruptcy after running low on money.

In court papers, Chief Executive Michael Crowley said the basketball maker is looking for a bankruptcy loan that will help it stock up on inventory before the holiday season. Bankruptcy Judge Joan N. Feeney gave the company, InfoMotion Sports Technologies Inc., permission to spend restricted cash in the meantime.

Mr. Crowley blamed the company’s financial problems on an investor group who promised in 2013 to extend $5 million in loans but failed to help the company secured additional loans, according to documents filed in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Boston. Putting the company into Chapter 11 protection on March 1 will give the company “and breathing room to restructure its debt without the pressure of default interest rates and foreclosure on its assets,” he said in court papers.

The company’s basketballs, which have motion-sensing chips inside, can record dribble intensity, analyze shot backspin and measure shooting arc, then send that data via Bluetooth technology to a nearby smartphone.

“The immediate and precise feedback allows players to improve their muscle memory skills more efficiently,” said Mr. Crowley, who founded the company in 2008.

Customers can also link up with other basketball owners around the world; Mr. Crowley told several news organizations that users could play a game of HORSE with somebody in China.

The invention won recognition from Time magazine, which named it one of the “Top 25 Inventions of the Year” in 2014.

The company’s website on Friday said customers can preorder the balls, which are currently sold out, for $159.95. (A 2013 press release said the basketballs would sell for $299.95 each.) Mr. Crowley said in court papers that he expects to receive a shipment of 1,300 basketballs in April.

In addition to the revenue on basketball sales, the company expects to take in money from a new pursuit: allowing manufacturers use its motion-analysis software to help increase worker safety and productivity, court papers said. The company plans to begin working with manufacturers later this year.

Aside from the roughly $1.4 million owed to the investor group, InfoMotion Sports Technologies also owes about $393,000 to an Ohio development agency that extended a loan in 2010. The company was originally based in a Columbus, Ohio, suburb but has stopped operating there, opting to use contracted labor instead, according to court papers.

Bankruptcy court papers said the company is based in Attleboro, Mass., located outside of Providence, R.I.

Write to Katy Stech at [email protected]