- MIT spin-off advancing musculoskeletal health with a powerful, lightweight system that combines clinically smart biosensors, intuitive software and AI to pinpoint the source of an injury and provide visibility of recovery
- Bringing precision analytics to standard musculoskeletal clinical assessments and leading the charge in establishing a new standard of care
- Expanding product offerings — targeting the low back, neck, lumbar spine and knee — amid the technology’s strong demand and deployments with major health systems, government organizations and Fortune 500 businesses
FIGUR8 (www.figur8tech.com), the med tech startup that’s developed the most advanced wearable musculoskeletal technology on the market, today announced a new round of financing and expanded product offerings — targeting the low back, neck, lumbar spine and knee — to take the guesswork out of musculoskeletal health evaluations. The company has raised $12 million in Series A financing led by Taiwania Capital with participation from new and existing investors that include the MIT-affiliated E14 Fund, Phoenix Venture Partners, and P5 Health Ventures, among others.
Measuring musculoskeletal performance and recovery has historically been impossible without expensive imaging and has been limited to visual and hands-on assessments that provide little to no objective data. FIGUR8 has developed the first musculoskeletal diagnostics system of its kind that serves as a solution to accurately pinpoint the source and severity of an injury and to have real-time recovery visibility.
“The strong demand we’ve seen from clinicians have underscored the critical need for quantitative evaluation of musculoskeletal disorders,” said Nan-Wei Gong, CEO and cofounder of FIGUR8. “We’ve developed the most powerful wearable musculoskeletal diagnostic technology on the market to bring precision analytics to musculoskeletal health. Today’s expanded product offerings and new financing will power FIGUR8’s deployment with major health systems, government organizations and large employers.”
FIGUR8’s system enables a full musculoskeletal and orthopedic assessment to be conducted in minutes by anyone, anywhere, regardless of technical or clinical expertise, and serves as a more effective solution than MRIs and X-rays for screening soft tissue-related symptoms.
“FIGUR8’s advanced technology is a tremendous breakthrough in the care of patients with musculoskeletal injuries,” said Dr. Julio José Caballero Salgado, medical director at MAPFRE. “We have always had tools like EKG for fast cardiovascular assessments, and now, thanks to FIGUR8, we have a new powerful tool to assess the level of soft tissue injuries and recovery.”
Powering FIGUR8’s solution is breakthrough technology developed over years by MIT engineers in collaboration with Mass General Brigham clinicians. From a single movement, over one million unique data points are captured and instantly analyzed to generate valuable insights to assess risk, deficiencies, and determine the next course of action.
“I compared FIGUR8’s motion tracking to all the other wearable technologies I’ve tried and thought they did it best,” said Mo Bamba of Orlando Magic Center. “I got a ton of data that was easy to understand and compare with FIGUR8’s movement library on the spot. I liked seeing how I stacked up against others almost instantly and what muscle groups I needed to work on. I think the product could be widely adopted in a lot of fields, not just athletics, so their growth plan was something I wanted to support as both an investor and a user.”
Musculoskeletal disorders are one of the largest categories of workplace injuries, accounting for nearly 30 percent of workers’ compensation costs according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Last year also saw the emergence of work-from-home injuries driven by musculoskeletal conditions as Americans experienced back, neck and other musculoskeletal pain working from home. From workplace injuries to work-from-home injuries and as more of the American workforce begins heading back to the office, tools like FIGUR8 will be vital in helping Americans get back to work safely.
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