This Founder Finally Made it to the NBA -- With an Analytics ToolHe'd never make the team, but he's still a major player on the court.

In June, Vasu Kulkarni was standing in the Cleveland Cavaliers' locker room, his hands sticky with champagne spray, his ears ringing with screams. The team had just won the NBA championship game, and Kulkarni, CEO ofKrossover, was invited in for the trophy presentation. It wasn't his footwork or his coaching skills that landed him the enviable invite: The Cavs use Krossover's data analytics tools to study their games toimprove performance. "As a kid, I would dream of just being in an NBA locker room," he says. "But to actually get to touch the championship trophy? It was surreal."

Growing up, Kulkarni thought he'd be in the locker room thanks to his prowess on the court. "I don't think a day's gone by since I was 5 years old that I haven't played basketball," he says. As a child in Bangalore, he spent almost every afternoon on the outdoor dirt courts and filled evenings with old videotapes of American basketball heroes. But when he started college at the University of Pennsylvania, he was in for a rude awakening: "I was a star in India, but suddenly at college everybody's a foot and a half taller than me," he says.