FIGUR8, a new digital platform designed to measure and track body movements as a biomarker, was launched after the company raised $7.5 million in seed funding. The funding round was led by P5 Health Ventures with participation from E14 Fund.
Read more New Wearable Tech Captures Dance Movements Transforms Them Into Visual Sensations
FIGUR8 will enable clinicians to take clients through an assessment to establish a movement health baseline, diagnose movement dysfunction, identify injury risk, optimize exercise routines and monitor progress in just minutes.
The female-led company’s highly accurate, cost-effective and portable on-body assessment system was developed in collaboration between Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) Sports Science Lab and MIT Media Lab researchers.
During any movement, FIGUR8’s patented FlexTech sensor technology quantifies a combination of micrometer precision signals of muscle activity and joint mobility. This breakthrough technology can reduce the cost of state-of-the-art movement testing equipment by as much as 95 percent and deliver a more effective solution than MRIs and X-rays for screening soft-tissue related symptoms, reports Business Wire.
The company is currently working with elite athletes, teams, training facilities and major occupational and physical therapy clinics. These early developmental partnerships allow FIGUR8 to generate data assets that can be used for clinical studies by major medical centers in areas such as Parkinson’s disease and stroke diagnostics and recovery.
“Measuring musculoskeletal performance and recovery has historically been limited to visual and hands-on assessments, providing little to no quantifiable data,” said Habib Haddad of E14 Fund. “This limitation makes accurate, large-scale and cost-effective treatment assessments nearly impossible. We believe FIGUR8 has identified a significant technological breakthrough and look forward to advancing the understanding of human movement through the company’s groundbreaking sensor technologies.”
The company’s award-winning FlexTech Sensors can be manually applied to multiple body locations in a matter of minutes to collect data unobtrusively. The advanced movement data – including muscle activation timing and intensity with joint angles, acceleration and motion in 3D space – is then made instantly available through an all-in-one, easy-to-use web-based platform.
“FIGUR8 is completely unique in its ability to aid clinicians in quantifying mobility health markers captured during any activity,” said FIGUR8 CEO, Dr. Nan-Wei Gong. “These assessments highlight the weaknesses and anomalies of body segments, which could be a symptom of an injury, disease, or simply a target for performance optimization.”
