18 Growing Wearable Startups (2023)
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Wearables exploded in popularity after giants like Apple, Fitbit (now owned by Google), Garmin, and Samsung released extremely popular products like the Apple Watch and the Fitbit Tracker.
Since then, integration with smartphones means that the functionality and use cases of wearables have continued to expand. In fact, wearables are projected to hit around 1.1B units worldwide by the end of 2023. And total spending on wearables is projected to exceed an estimated $93.8B in 2022.
The healthcare, sleep, fitness, pet, and labor industries have all benefited from wearable technology that results in better analytics and ultimately better performance.
Read below for our list of exciting wearable startups that are shaking up the way people work out, track their pets, and even lift heavy objects.
1. Hinge Health
5-year search growth: 510%
Search growth status: Exploding
Year founded: 2015
Location: San Francisco, California
Funding: $1B (Series E)
What they do: Hinge Health has created the world’s leading digital musculoskeletal (MSK) clinic, with 4 out of 5 employers choosing Hinge to provide digital physical therapy, alert patients about possible elective surgeries, and cut down insurance claims dramatically. Notable companies like Salesforce, Verizon, Phillips, US Foods, and Ralph Lauren all count themselves as clients of Hinge. Hinge has partnerships with 750K+ in-person medical providers.
2. Petkit
5-year search growth: 493%
Search growth status: Exploding
Year founded: 2013
Location: Shanghai, China
Funding: $95.4M (Series D)
What they do: Shanghai-based Petkit offers pet wearables like an activity monitor that gauges calorie consumption, location tracking, health, and even a pet’s mood. The site has expanded to sell smart pet products like auto cat litter boxes, comfortable dog harnesses, and cat carrying backpacks.
3. Whoop
5-year search growth: 8200%
Search growth status: Regular
Year founded: 2012
Location: Boston, Massachusetts
Funding: $404.8M (Series F)
What they do: Whoop’s extensive social media advertising has made it one of the most well-known wearables in the world, leading to over $400M in funding at the time of writing. Designed as an optimization system for athletes, their wearable tracks sleeping, training, and recovery for peak performance.
4. Vitls
5-year search growth: -100%
Search growth status: Peaked
Year founded: 2016
Location: Houston, Texas
Funding: Undisclosed (Seed)
What they do: Vitls makes a small, unobtrusive wearable that shares vital signs with doctors, nurses, and caregivers. Considering that preventable deaths and adverse events happen outside of ICU beds, Vitls is attempting to create the continuous monitoring of ICU beds outside of the hospital. The Vitls cloud-based wearable is disposable, waterproof, and has a 5-day battery life.
5. Silvertree
5-year search growth: 20%
Search growth status: Peaked
Year founded: 2020
Location: Cambridge, Massachusetts
Funding: $12.5M (Seed)
What they do: Silvertree makes stylish wearables for elderly, at-risk folks with critical features like GPS tracking, “fall detection” that alerts a selected safety team, and a month-long battery to boot.
Silvertree’s customer base continues to grow with over 54 million Americans over the age of 65.
6. Wristcam
5-year search growth: 0%
Search growth status: Peaked
Year founded: 2012
Location: San Mateo, California
Funding: $76M (Series A)
What they do: Apple’s wildly successful Apple Watch has over 100M users worldwide. Capitalizing on the global popularity of the world’s most popular wearable, Wristcam is made up of 2 HD cameras and an image stabilizer that allows the Apple Watch to take 4K photos and videos. Wristcam fits snugly inside of the Apple Watch band.
7. Apollo Neuroscience
5-year search growth: 750%
Search growth status: Regular
Year founded: 2016
Location: Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
Funding: $21.2M (Series A)
What they do: Dr. David Rabin founded Apollo Neuroscience and created the Apollo Neuro, which provides sound touch therapy. Born from research conducted at the University of Pittsburgh, low-frequency sounds were discovered to help patients with stress relief and relaxation.
Notable figures like Jim Kwik have endorsed Apollo wearables for their effectiveness in promoting better sleep and recovery.
8. Grapheal
5-year search growth: 0%
Search growth status: Peaked
Year founded: 2019
Location: Grenoble, France
Funding: $2.1M (Seed)
What they do: Fresh off of a “Best in Innovation Award” from CES 2022, French startup Grapheal’s smartphone biosensors, wearables, and connected devices enable critical remote patient monitoring and precise diagnostics.
9. Metacore
5-year search growth: 80%
Search growth status: Regular
Year founded: 2014
Location: Helsinki, Finland
Funding: $185.8M (Debt Financing)
What they do: Founded in 2014 by video game veterans as one of the first dedicated smartwatch game companies, Finland-based Metacore achieved success with their award-winning title Runeblade.
10. boAt
5-year search growth: 35%
Search growth status: Regular
Year founded: 2016
Location: New Delhi, India
Funding: $177M (Convertible Note)
What they do: Capitalizing on the immense growth of personalized wearables, boAt is one of India’s largest distributors of wearables and claims to be one of the top wearable watch brands in India.
Features in TechRadar, Forbes, and Gadgets360 have helped boAt scale rapidly.
11. Tractive
5-year search growth: 148%
Search growth status: Exploding
Year founded: 2012
Location: Pasching, Austria
Funding: $37.7M (Series A)
What they do: Every year, around 10M cats and dogs are lost, and very few end up being found. Tractive has created a sophisticated GPS tracking device that fits on a collar and is updated in real-time via a smartphone app. After being featured in Amazon’s hit reality show “The Pack”, Tractive’s growth exploded.
12. Clim8
5-year search growth: -100%
Search growth status: Peaked
Year founded: 2016
Location: Ecully, France
Funding: $8.9M (Convertible Note)
What they do: Clim8 is a wearables company combining cutting-edge textile manufacturing for extreme conditions, with technology. Engineered for harsh, cold climates, their heating wearables can be woven into garments for superior performance.
Partnerships with leaders like North Face, Burton, and Gore-Tex give Clim8 tons of products to test their warming wearables on.
13. Atlas Tracking
5-year search growth: -9%
Search growth status: Peaked
Year founded: 2018
Location: Middlesbrough, United Kingdom
Funding: Undisclosed (Pre-Seed)
What they do: Race timing for marathons, Spartan Races, and other long-distance events has always been plagued by cheating and inaccurate and outdated GPS tracking. Atlas has developed a line of wearables that are sleek, non-invasive, and deliver real-time GPS data through their application. In 2018, Adidas invested in Atlas as part of its incubator program.
14. Earable
5-year search growth: -100%
Search growth status: Peaked
Year founded: 2018
Location: Boulder, Colorado
Funding: $8.7M (Seed)
What they do: Earable’s sleep aid wearables were created by scientists from Oxford University, in conjunction with esteemed partners like Founders Fund, John Hopkins, and University of Oxford.
Their device is targeted towards people with sleep disorders like insomnia and has features that promote deeper, healthier sleep. On average, Earable claims to reduce the time it takes to fall asleep by 19 minutes.
15. FightCamp
5-year search growth: 100%
Search growth status: Regular
Year founded: 2013
Location: Costa Mesa, California
Funding: $98.5M (Series B)
What they do: Workout after workout at home can get tiresome and repetitive. FightCamp’s unique wearable boxing technology and punching bag are connected via smartphone and push out real-time stats, and 1000+ differentiated workouts, from high intensity to casual.
Originally beginning solely as wearable punch tracking hardware, FightCamp has expanded its product line for a comprehensive home workout experience powered by wearables.
16. Neurotech
5-year search growth: 61%
Search growth status: Exploding
Year founded: 2018
Location: Bangalore, India
Funding: Undisclosed
What they do: Neurotech, an India-based wearables startup, produces smart earphones that map out the brain and allow people to meditate more intelligently, while also gathering data on how the brain is functioning.
17. German Bionic
5-year search growth: 400%
Search growth status: Regular
Year founded: 2017
Location: Augsburg, Germany
Funding: $48.4M (Debt Financing)
What they do: For workers doing manual labor day after day, injuries on the job are common and long-term effects to the body are potentially devastating. German Bionic engineers wearable “ connected exoskeletons” that allow people to lift more while correcting posture and preventing injury.
The company claims that they reduce sick days by 25%, have saved 6500+ days of work, and over 6M Euros for companies that deploy their exoskeleton.
18. VitalConnect
5-year search growth: 50%
Search growth status: Regular
Year founded: 2011
Location: San Jose, California
Funding: $178.9M (Series F)
What they do: VitalConnect is a remote patient monitoring wearable that transmits 11 vital signs through real-time software. Physicians use VitalConnect to monitor patients after they leave the hospital, when they’re still vulnerable. During the Covid-19 pandemic, VitalConnect attained Emergency Use Authorization from the FDA for remote cardiac monitoring, a big step for the California startup.
Conclusion
The wearable market is one of the most vibrant and rapidly growing sectors within technology, as cloud computing and hardware continue to overlap more and more.
Keep following these startups as they innovate and deliver value to society’s health and wellness, allow pets to be safer and live longer lives, and provide valuable intel to physicians and healthcare professionals worldwide.
