Wearable device startup Kinetic announced Tuesday it closed on a $11.25 million Series A, bolstering its mission to make workplaces more safe. The round was led by Crosslink Capital, with participation from new investor Prologis Ventures, and brings the company’s total funding raised to $17 million.
Reflex, Kinetic’s Bluetooth-enabled device, was designed with the industrial workforce in mind. It is small, can be fastened to the waistband and has sensors that alert the wearer to potentially harmful movements.
First, it creates a map of a given wearer’s body, measuring things like height and back contortions. Then, its algorithms identify motions like bending, reaching and twisting, and self-calibrates each time to trigger alerts, warning the wearer that an injury is possible. The user can toggle between these alerts to get more information about what they can do to reduce harmful movements.
The device also provides daily and weekly breakdowns of the wearer’s activity, as well as additional advice and progress benchmarks. Employers can see these metrics, too, which they can then use to predict any future workplace injuries and figure out what caused past ones.
Until recently, Reflex was used specifically to prevent workplace injuries. However, in light of the pandemic, Kinetic updated its device with features meant to prevent the spread of COVID-19 between co-workers.
Now, Reflex alerts the wearer when they come within six feet of a coworker and tracks how many times that happens within a day. The device will vibrate lightly whenever employees get too close, and that data is then collected on a real-time dashboard that can be monitored for contact tracing purposes. Managers can then use this dashboard to track how many exposures a given employee has had, who those exposures involved and the duration of each one.
“Keeping employees safe, whether it’s from a workplace injury or a virus, has become a primary objective of everyone from the warehouse operator to the operations executive,” said Eric Chin of Crosslink Capital in a statement. “Demand for the Kinetic Reflex wearable device has increased exponentially, and this investment round will help Kinetic meet that demand.”
Indeed, Kinetic claims its device has been worn by tens of thousands of workers. This year, the company’s revenue has grown four times and it has sold more wearables than in the previous five years, according to Crunchbase News.
To keep up, Kinetic plans to use this funding to continue manufacturing its devices, as well as grow its marketing, sales and engineering teams. The company has a few open engineering positions available right now.
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