Crowdfunding is alive and well in mobile health. Just a few months after Scanadu's record-breaking presale, a number of mobile and digital health companies continue to turn to Indiegogo and Kickstarter to fund projects. Over the last few months, MobiHealthNews has written about Emotiv, Beddit, uCheck, and Eclipse.
EEG-tracking headset Emotiv still has three days left in its campaign, but the company has already raised more than 10 times its funding goal and created and met several stretch goals in the form of additional sensors. Bed-based sleep sensor Beddit also surpassed its goal, with $288,000 raised so far of an $80,000 goal -- with 20 more days to go.
On the other hand, uChek, the urinalysis app which was hoping to use its crowdfunding campaign as part of a path to FDA clearance, didn't do nearly so well, falling short of its $42,000 goal with only $15,000 at the campaign's conclusion. Similarly, Eclipse, the digital breast exam device, has only raised $4,000 of a $650,000 goal, although the project still has 20 days to go.
Here's six more crowdfunding projects that are still under way.
BreathAcoustics is a new kind of wearable health tracker, a Bluetooth headset that lets a user listen to music and make phone calls, but also tracks health metrics -- including using the headset microphone to measure a user's breath patterns. The headset also contains optical sensors that can return data about heart rate and pulse oximetry. Finally, the headset contains environmental sensors that return data about altitude, location, and barometric pressure, all displayed on the user's smartphone.
BreathResearch, the company behind the campaign, is partnered with HeartZones USA to create apps for the device for a number of use cases: stress relief, athletic training, weight loss, and sleep. The campaign is part of the company's entry for the Philips Innovation Fellows competition and the campaign is being co-supported by Health Tech Hatch, a health-specific crowdfunding platform. With 48 days to go in its Indiegogo campaign, BreathAcoustics is $13,000 into a $30,000 goal.
