PKvitality is an advanced bio-wearable company currently working on its innovative Skin Taste® technology. This technology allows the analysis of key physiological markers by simply “tasting” the skin rather than analyzing blood samples.
Read more PKvitality’s SkinTaste Sensor and Tiny Needles Measure Glucose by Painlessly Penetrating Your Skin
The company’s flagship product, K’Watch Glucose, is a Continuous Blood Glucose Monitor (CGM) which takes the form of a smartwatch and is accompanied by a patch that makes the CGM invisible and painless. The smartwatch provides painless and discrete Continuous Glucose Monitoring (CGM).
Using the same technology, PKvitality is also working on K’Watch Athlete, a smartwatch which will provide real-time monitoring of their lactic acid – an indicator of muscle fatigue – to significantly improve an athlete’s training and performance.
PKvitality is a winner of the 12th IoT/WT Innovation World Cup® – the world’s leading open innovation platform that supports breakthrough innovations to become reality and connects techpreneurs with international tech corporations. PKvitality was awarded in the wearable healthcare category at the 39th WT|Wearable Technologies Conference EUROPE.
“The Innovation World Cup was a great experience for PKvitality and we will definitely be back in the competition next year!” the company says.
This fast-growing startup was founded in 2013 with a mission is to enable everyone to be actively involved in their well-being and health through products that are simple and pleasant to use. PKvitality pronounced “Pekka” in French means star in Polynesian dialect. It’s the encounter of the Tribal world, our origins, and the Stars, a journey, an adventure.
Key Milestones Reached
In January, 2017, PKvitality won 6 awards including 1 for BEST OF INNOVATION in “Tech for a Better World” at the Consumer Electronics Show. In December of that year, the company won Laureate of Concours Innovation Numérique by BPIFrance.
In October 2018, PKvitality entered pre-clinical stage (more in vitro, 1st in vivo, ex vivo, in silico). A year later in October 2019, Beurer Gmbh, a major distributor of blood monitors in Germany, Italy and Austria invests 2M€ alongside a 250K€ private investment from Beurer Managing Director.
In December 2019, PKvitality became the winner in the Medtech category of EIT Health Catapult contest, the largest European startup health contest.
In June 2020, PKvitality closed seed funding tour with 3.4 million Euros. In September of that year, PKvitality won Laureate of the Eurostars and Innov’up Leader PIA programs and started research on multi-analyte monitoring solutions. At the same time, it won Laureate of the highly selective EIC Accelerator program.
In November 2020, PKvitality won the 12th edition of the Healthcare Innovation World Cup.
Challenges faced
The main challenge PKvitality has faced is due to the pluridisciplinary and complexity of the project. The startup has successfully gathered a team of medical experts, entrepreneurs, people with consumer electronics approach and a competent IT and engineering team. And all of these people work together to foster collective intelligence, and that was a challenge, according to PKvitality.
Read more Wearable Device Gathers Large Samples From Sweat For Monitoring Health
What’s coming in the near future?
PKvitality is currently preparing the first clinical trials that will happen in a couple of months on a reduced number of people.
And finally…
Three tips from PKvitality for upcoming startups:
- Gather concrete elements and results to show your product/prototype is on track and present them in an understandable and attractive way.
- Build your presentation around a coherent and fluid storytelling.
- Practice practice practice your pitch!
