The world of wearables just got a little bit more crowded, but this time the technology is aimed less at tracking fitness and more at saving lives.
iBeat, which has been developing a vital monitoring watch, raised another $5.5 million. The round was led by Kairos and 8VC, with participation by Plug and Play, ChinaRock Capital Management, and a swath of angel investors. iBeat previously raised a $1.5 million round in 2016 followed by another $3 million round in 2017. This latest injection of capital brings its total funds raised to $10 million.
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Founded in 2016, iBeat’s wearable vital tracker is a non-invasive device that constantly detects heart rate, skin perfusion or blood flow, oxygenation, and motion.
“Our sensor utilizes different light wavelengths to understand the changes in oxygenated and deoxygenated blood; this allows us to continually monitor whether a person is alive and breathing, and also enables us to monitor vitals for instances when a user has dangerous heart rhythms,” Ryan Howard, the CEO and founder of iBeat, explained to Crunchbase News in an email.
If the sensors detect a dangerous change in vitals, the cellular-enabled watch will prompt the wearer by vibrating, beeping, and checking in with the person through its display. If the wearer has fallen, doesn’t answer, or selects that they need help, the watch signals for emergency assistance and notifies selected family members. Individuals can also view their daily, weekly, and monthly activity online.
The company has spent two years developing and testing its “Heart Watch” device and sensors, which it says are validated with a third party sensor development and data analytics firm. Howard told Crunchbase News that the company ran beta testing with nearly 200 users aged 40 to 80, the majority of which had pre-existing cardiac conditions or were at risk of heart failure.
“We have also partnered with one of the nation’s leading medical and research institutions in heart health science and are in the midst of clinical trials with their high-risk cardiac patients,” Howard wrote. (iBeat is not able to disclose the name of the institution until the clinical trials are complete, but the company told Crunchbase News that it is “SF-based.”)
This round comes at a time when Apple and Fitbit are increasingly concerned with including more accurate, targeted medical screening. Fitbit recently invested in a wearable company, Sano, which is developing a product to detect changing glucose levels specifically for individuals who are dealing with diabetes.
However, iBeat doesn’t consider Fitbit and Apple to be its main competitors. The startup is more focused on carving out a space in the personal emergency response systems (PERS) market. Howard told Crunchbase News that the PERS industry, unlike iBeat, focuses on individuals 75 years and older.
“Our brand and design is intentionally targeted at both the elderly market and the untapped baby boomer market—people who are realizing they’re getting older and starting to have more risk—specifically cardiac risk,” Howard explained in his email.
The company is planning to release the Heart Watch in early summer and interested individuals can preorder the $249 device online.
Illustration: Li-Anne Dias
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