Thalmic Labs, which makes the Myo gesture-sending armband, has raised another $120 million from Intel Capital, Amazon Alexa Fund and others. VentureBeat notes that this is the first fundraising round since 2013, which yielded $20 million. Intel Capital led that round, too. The Myo band is a particularly interesting product. It fits around your forearm and senses -- and … [Read more...]
Hexoskin Raises Nearly $1 Million for Connected Fabrics to Chase FDA Approval
It's been a good year for the connected fabrics business: OMSignal shipped shirts with Ralph Lauren, Clothing+ got scooped up by Jabil (which developed a reference platform), and now Hexoskin has closed a funding round of just under $1 million so it can chase FDA approval for a new line of clothing. Hexoskin's parent company, Carre Technologies, says the upcoming line will … [Read more...]
Bionym, Maker of Nymi, Closes $14 Million Series A Funding Round
Bionym, makers the Nymi identity band, says it's closed a $14 million Series A funding round, including money from Mastercard and Salesforce. The Nymi, slated to ship this fall, is a wristband that can confirm a wearer's identity by sensing their electrocardiogram. Bionym expects the Nymi to have particular applications related to passwords and financial transactions. The … [Read more...]
Augmate Lands $2.8M in Seed Funding
The New York-based augmented reality startup Augmate has pulled in $2.8 million in seed funding, led by VC (and California separatist) Tim Draper. Augmate is an enterprise play, building enterprise software for visors; it plays in the same space as APX Labs, for instance. Specific applications are in construction, medicine, and dispatch and repair. … [Read more...]
Crowdfunding Wearables Isn’t a Good Way to VC’s Hearts, Techcrunch Finds
There are been some extraordinarily successful crowdfunded wearable projects, it's true. Pebble and Omate are famous for raising more than $1 million each and going on to commercial success. But an analysis on TechCrunch indicates that only 23 percent of venture-funded wearables companies got their start in crowdfunding -- and only 19 wearables companies that crowd-raised more … [Read more...]
Funding Roundup: Owlet, APX Labs
Two small funding stories of note: Owlet, which makes an instrumented baby bootie that tracks skin temperature, heart rate, blood ox, and sleep data, has raised $1.85 million in seed funding. R/GA and Techstars, which incubated the company, participated in the round. Owlet, which costs $249, hopes to ship the summer, company officials say. APX Labs, a software company … [Read more...]