Forget about wearing your Apple Watch to track your health. Levels is the biowearable that provides real-time feedback on how your diet and activities directly impact your health. Through continuous glucose monitoring, which has traditionally been reserved for those with diabetes, the company is on a mission to address the rising rates of metabolic dysfunction in the US by monitoring the effects of your food choices. Levels currently has a waitlist of 44,000 people. AlleyWatch caught up with founders Casey Means MD Josh Clemente, Sam Corcos, David Flinner and Andrew Conner to discuss the importance of metabolic health, the company’s plans to expand the team across engineering, operations, and marketing, and recent funding round from investors that include A16z, Marc Randolph, Dick Costolo, Michael Arrington, and Matt Dellavedova.
Hardware
Ergatta Raises $5M to Fuse Rowing Machines with Competitive Gaming to Improve At-Home Fitness
“Investors don’t like hardware, and rowing can be perceived as a niche interest. We had to respond to concerns like ‘what if Peloton copies your content,’ and manage the difficulty of effectively demo-ing our product given that it’s a large piece of hardware and COVID-19 made transporting the rowers a bigger challenge.” Learn more about how Tom Aulet of Ergatta, a connected fitness startup that offers elegantly designed in-home rowing machines with a gamification element, was able to successfully raise $5M for the company during the pandemic from investors that include Greycroft and Techstars.
Lululemon Acquires Mirror for $500M to Move into Hardware
Lululemon, the Vancouver-based athleisure company, has agreed to acquire NYC-based Mirror, the connect fitness system for $500M in an all-cash transaction.
Mutable Raises $1.5M to Disrupt Edge Computing with its Marketplace
This edge computing solution maximizes underutilized capacity bringing in new revenue for server operators while also delivering a better internet experience. Find out how Mutable does it…
Somatix Raises $4.5M for its Wearables Solution That Saves Lives Through Gesture Detection
1 in 3 senior citizens suffers from a fall each year according to the CDC but software companies like Somatix have built life-saving wearable technology that passively monitors a patient’s wellbeing, allowing healthcare providers to intervene before serious accidents happen. Somatix’s offers its signature SafeBeing™ software solution to elderly care facilities and rehab centers on […]
The PropTech Report: An Open Frontier For Hardware Entrepreneurs
Two constants have guided my professional life: venture capital and real estate. Every year, I eagerly await to see which portfolio will produce greater returns. Today, in the words of the great (fictional) New Yorker George Louis Costanza, “Worlds are colliding!” Enertiv, a New York Angels investment, keeps growing with an impressive client list of property managers and […]
MIRROR Adds Another $34M in Funding From Marquee Investors to Bring Fitness Into your Home
AlleyWatch caught up with CEO and founder Brynn Putnam to learn more about MIRROR’s latest funding, partnerships, and future growth plans to revolutionize in-home fitness workouts and beyond. Who were your investors and how much did you raise? MIRROR has secured $34 million in Series B-1 financing led by Point72 Ventures. Other participants in the round include lululemon […]
littleBits Acquired by Sphero
littleBits Electronics, the open-source library and maker of electronic modules and kits to foster STEM learning, has been acquired by Boulder-based Sphero. The terms of the transaction were not disclosed. “When I studied engineering, it was top-down, test-based,” said Ayah Bdeir, founder of littleBits. “I hated it and wanted to quit every semester. Then I […]
WAVE Raises Another $4.15M for its Meditation Cushion and Subscription Service
86% of the American population does not meditate. Many of these people suffer from the very conditions that meditation can relieve – namely stress. WAVE is a lifestyle brand that remedies this disconnect through its music-driven, hardware-enabled meditation platform targeted toward millenials. At the heart of the company’s offering are a $199 connected memory foam […]
goTenna Raises Another $24M to Bring Connectivity in Situations When it is Needed the Most
Losing touch with the outside world during calamitous events like natural disasters is still a serious concern even in this age of what seems to be constant connectivity. goTenna addresses this problem with its decentralized communication infrastructure network that is virtually indestructible and designed for the times where communication may most be needed. Founded in 2012, […]
A Personal Saga To Understanding Hardware Market Opportunities
The shock ripped through the industry, on almost every social media platform techies were bemoaning the loss of Anki. As a former robo-toy maker, I read the epitaph months earlier in the title of Lara Sorokanich’s Medium post, “Anki’s AI Robot Is a Delightful (and Expensive) Desk Toy.” When asked this week to comment, I could […]