Boston Biomotion is the first startup of Makers Boot Camp’s portfolio
NYC-based startup introduces a personalized exercise & rehabilitation experience, optimizing human performance through robotics and data analytics.
Boston Biomotion is working hard to bring 21st Century innovation to a key industry that hasn’t gone too far in the last decades.
The American startup brings a SaaS business model that improves both injury recovering and performance results for healthcare professionals & athletes — and we’re thrilled to support such a promising project.
Since 2015, when we started considering ways to support hardware startups, we learnt that only Project Management and Manufacturing expertise, our core business, wouldn’t be enough to empower IoT entrepreneurs.
After meeting makers from different backgrounds, their feedbacks brought urgent needs to go beyond our main skills, so we had to find ways to make it happen.
The main challenge has been how to embrace the broader concept of Monozukuri, a Japanese mindset of constant improvement, and fit it into the lifecycle of ups and downs of global hardware startups.
In a special partnership with FabFoundry NYC, who’s been working in the East Coast to dig into the precious local ecosystem specificities, Boston Biomotion has been selected as our first bet.
The first steps taken by launching our 1st Investment Fund, MBC Shisaku Fund, are meant to provide a few early stage startups the support needed for their small lot prototyping.
We’re constantly looking for ways to connect entrepreneurs to players who believe in the potential of startups and can provide real practical support, so building a Fund with Kyoto Bank as an anchor investor and having DMG Mori Seiki as our First LP proves that we’re in the right way!
So if you’d like to understand some of the reasons why we believe Boston Biomotion stands out, check it out.
- Team members
Many factors can affect the modus operandi of a startup, from team member’s background to the scope they decide to share with outsiders, but in the end of the day, it's all about the people who can make the difference.
We have been in touch with the Founder and team over the last six months, understanding their mindset and ways we could add value, watching their constant iterations and improvements from business plan to the prototype stage.
Besides getting to know their team’s personality/background, technology novelty & all their technical details, we realized they’ve been trying to understand their customers since the beginning, partnering with key experts in their industry.
- Market needs and opportunities
“Exercise and rehab have barely changed in 40 years.” (Boston Biomotion)
They identified a problem for this niche market, worked on the IoT solution based on an existing MIT-technology and proved there is a potential market willing to pay for what they offer.
Their team has studied their target very well and presents a concise business plan validated with the help of diverse stakeholders & influencers, and key “personas” for their planned product, including the #1 orthopedic hospital in the United States (The Hospital for Special Surgery).Clusters from their target may vary: pro-sports & performance training facilities, sports teams and hospitals, each one with its own demands.
Their vision is clear: final users will have access to high-end fitness equipments & sports analytics, and in the future, the solution can be expanded to Health Clubs, Gyms, Rehab Clinics, Assisted Living Facilities & High Schools.
A very important fact is that they're aware of the current available solutions to solve the same problem and can sell their value to their target customers.
- Innovation and novelty
Boston Biomotion is one of the forerunners in the very popular intersection of personal health (4,797 startups), fitness (2,630 startups) and wellness field of startups.
In order to test their prototype — both software + hardware, they‘ve been involved with physical therapists, researchers, doctors, and athletic trainers who understand the challenges most patients face when going thru injury or looking for a better recovery. The testimonials can be checked on the video below:
- The Momentum
CEO & Founder Sam Miller decided to revive his father’s original idea (originating during his time at the Biomechanics Lab at MIT — Massachusetts Institute of Technology) — when he realized the power of current IoT technologies.
The product wasn’t viable when it was first conceptualized, due to high costs of production and lack of technologies to track human movements.
The kinds of data has been validated with user’s needs, with a long way to go — that’s why they’ll focus on their expertise and let our experts take care of the details of their small lot.
“MBC’s investment provides viable opportunities to engage their design for manufacturing experts and to produce the highest-quality products in their factories in Kyoto, allowing our team to focus on concept design, software development, and continuing to reach and collaborate with our tremendous partners and customer pipeline.” (Sam Miller, Boston Biomotion CEO & Founder)
With 2019 Rugby World Cup and 2020 Olympic Games as the upcoming global sports events, Japan will be — more than ever — a big arena for innovative companies to appeal to the global audience, including startups who move fast & better to disrupt the fields of healthcare & wellness.
Following our criteria for MBC Shisaku Fund, Boston Biomotion becomes the first startup on our portfolio (all the startups we supported so far have no investment involved), and one of the most promising projects we met during the last years.
There is still a long way for entrepreneurs to cross cultural, language and physical barriers, from Asia to the US, but we believe it’s possible once we join forces with startups.
We hope this first step towards this direction will be followed by other stakeholders willing to support fantastics startups like Boston Biomotion.
Additional Points to mention: MBC Fund will support just a small part of Boston Biomotion work. For the other steps, they still need additional investments. If you believe you could help, reach out to us!
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