Motion biomarker diagnostics company Figur8, which partly builds on MIT research, has collected $7.5m in a round involving MIT Media Labs affiliate E14 Fund.
Figur8, a US-based body movement diagnostics spinout of Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) and Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), on Tuesday received $7.5m in a seed round backed by the MIT Media Lab-affiliated E14 Fund.
The round was led by venture capital firm P5 Health Ventures and also featured unnamed additional investors.
Founded in 2016, Figur8 has devised a platform that employs wearable sensors to precisely measure the patient’s body movement as a biomarker for musculoskeletal-related conditions such as Parkinson’s disease and stroke.
Figur8’s approach avoids the need for cameras, instead applying algorithms to evaluate the patient’s biomechanics from the sensor data, before producing the results through its web-based software.
The technology is being piloted with specific client groups ahead of planned clinical studies, including athletes, teams, training facilities and major physical or occupational therapy clinics.
Figur8 exploits research conducted at MGH’s Sports Sciences Lab and MIT’s Media Lab. Nan-Wei Gong, a former research assistant in the media lab, helms the spinout as chief executive.
Habib Haddad, managing partner at E14 Fund, said: “Measuring musculoskeletal performance and recovery has historically been limited to visual and hands-on assessments, providing little to no quantifiable data.
“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.”
