Biomotum, an AgeTech Collaborative™ startup participant, is on a mission to deliver home-based, life-changing rehabilitation and to improve people’s health by building intelligent wearable devices to assist people who experience difficulty walking. The company’s first product, the SPARK AFO, combines innovative assistive technology and real-time biofeedback in an adjustable stiffness ankle brace paired with an engaging mobile app.
We spoke with co-founder Ray Browning about the company’s product, its inspiration and its vision for the future.
This interview has been edited for clarity and length.
Please tell us about Biomotum.
We are a wearable robotics company that makes powered bracing for the lower leg — predominantly for the ankle — to help people walk. Many different people can benefit from our device, including those who have an impairment due to a neurologic condition, or those who have Parkinson’s or are recovering from a stroke.
Importantly, our device can also help people who are simply slowing down from the aging process, but who want to maintain physical activity as part of their daily routine. Wearable robotics have often been pigeonholed into the category of rehabilitation, but we want to also serve older adults who simply want to maintain their independence, physical activity and a healthy lifestyle.
How does the device work?
The device provides active assistance while you walk; a good analogy would be to say that it’s like an e-bike for your feet. There’s a brace that goes down your lower leg, and there’s a footplate that goes underneath your foot. There’s an ankle joint that moves, so the foot plate can move relative to the lower leg brace. We power it with small motors that augment your movements to make walking a little bit easier and faster.
It’s got an elegant and simple controller that measures the pressure that you’re putting on the footplate, then delivers a certain amount of torque to the device’s ankle joint. It adjusts to your movement patterns so that it provides power that’s proportional to your needs at that moment. It’s life-changing for people, enabling them to do things like go up and down stairs and ramps, and even walk fast enough to get across a crosswalk.
What inspired you to co-found the company?
Zach Lerner, my co-founder, and I share a deep joy and appreciation for movement — in particular, using our legs to explore the world in a lot of different ways. Whether we’re bicycling, climbing, walking or running, our legs are very important.
The genesis of Biomotum was when we began to observe people who were having a hard time exploring the world in these ways because they had a walking impairment. In recent years, there has been a real advance in the electrification of transport, such as electric cars, electric scooters and skateboards, and e-bikes. Motors are becoming lighter, controllers are getting better and batteries are lasting longer.
At the same time, there have been advances in robotics that make controllers much more efficient and flexible. So we took that passion for wanting people to be able to explore the world with their legs, combined it with advances in electrification and robotics, and here we are.
You’re really focused on applications beyond a rehabilitation setting.
My wife is a neurologic physical therapist, and part of my motivation is to give her and other therapists better tools than they have now, because they absolutely need them. They’re the workhorses of medicine: If you’ve had an injury, the person you spend the most time with is a physical, occupational or speech therapist.
But we also know that many people don’t suffer from a diagnosed medical condition — they’re just slowing down with age. That’s normal, but it starts to impact their ability to remain independent and do the things they enjoy doing, such as going on a walk with their partner or playing with their grandkids. So we see our device not only as a rehab solution, but also as a health and wellness solution.
What are some obstacles you’ve encountered building the company, and how have you navigated those?
Many people think that making a regulated product is very difficult, but I wouldn’t describe it that way. We dealt with the challenge by going to the Food and Drug Administration and asking, “Can you help us understand what we need to do, and how to do it?” — and they’ve been remarkably helpful. They want you to be successful; their job is just to make sure that your solution is safe and effective.
We’ve also had the challenge of needing to be more cognizant of how people experience and interact with our device. Like many startups, we began with a great idea. But it’s all too easy to start with a great idea, then engineer your way to a solution that people don’t want to use. We ended up building heavy, expensive, noisy pieces of equipment, and people would say, “I would never wear that.” So it’s been an important transition for us as a company to pay more attention to what our end users are saying.
What’s on the horizon for Biomotum?
We’re growing and adding some really talented people who have extensive medical device experience, and we’re excited about that. We’re also finishing up our clinical trials and building a road map to launch our product in Australia and Canada, which we’ll then translate into a U.S. launch.
We’re also super excited about what we can add to the suite of tools that aging people can use to go outside and have experiences of doing things they didn’t think they could do. I’m looking forward to the day when I’m out riding my bike or hiking, and I see somebody using our technology to ride or hike, and they’re with their kids and grandkids. That’s the goal and it’s my life’s work.
You can find out more about Biomotum at its website.
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