Health startup FeetMe gets $10.3 million to help with body posture monitoring

French startup FeetMe has landed €9.4 million ($10.3 million) in Series A funding for its wearable technology that tracks gait and posture.

The company takes multiple approaches to learn more about a user’s gait – locomotion achieved through the movement of human limbs.

FeetMe devices appear as shoe insoles that have both pressure and motion-sensing technology and an algorithm to analyze the user’s walk. Users simply download the corresponding FeetMe app to view evaluations and track their progress.

The device was designed in the hope of improving the mobility of those undergoing rehab and can even be used to monitor disorders associated with disease including multiple sclerosis, diabetic foot problems, and Parkinson’s disease.

FeetMe aims to use its new funding to support commercial activities in clinical trials and increase the number of hospitals and rehab services recommending the devices.

The funding comes just two years after the startup secured $2.28 million in seed funding led by Kurma Diagnostics. It is one of many health startups to secure funding in 2019, including InsightRX, which has just landed $10 million to broaden the company’s therapeutic areas and provide additional hospitals and pharmaceutical companies with access to its technology.

All FeetMe wearables collect data in real-time, which allows the evaluation app to create real-time gait parameter visualizations. Physicians can also access this data in real-time, which enables them to follow their patients’ progress.

Real-time technology is picking up in the market, with Northwestern Medicine recently launching an app that allows parents of children in ICUs to track their child’s progress overnight.

Not only can users access unique home rehabilitation programs with remote medical monitoring through FeetMe, but the devices can save doctors time, reduce hospitalization time, and ease finding the right treatment for a patient.

FeetMe believes its technology could additionally optimize clinical trials thanks to its high precision measurements and both reduce the number of patients and the heterogeneity of samples needed.

Multiple versions of the product are available, including FeetMe Sport, Evaluation, Rehabilitation, Stimulate, and Insole.

Founder and CEO Alexis Mathieu told MobiHealth News: “Our platform has demonstrated it can generate unique insights and real-world evidence to accelerate clinical research at scale, and our FeetMe Evaluation solution is setting a new standard for long-term continuous mobility assessment of patients with gait disorders.”

“This Series A round will help FeetMe to accelerate commercial activities.” 

The company has already won an array of awards and continues in its mission to “be the trustworthy partner for mobility specialists and patients to improve mobility with smart active wearables.”

Other new wearable technology includes efforts by The European Federation of Pharmaceutical Industries and Associations (EFPIA) together with European scientists that recently created a sensor-enabled tool to digitally assess mobility loss.

With Amazon working on emotion-sensing wearable devices, wearable technology is about to take off. Interest in these tools is growing, and FeetMe seems to be looking at a very bright future.