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#RA23 Startup Story | Possibility Neurotechnologies

WHAT IS YOUR STARTUP AND WHO IS THE TARGET MARKET?

Possibility Neurotechnologies creates brain-computer interface solutions.

Our product, Think2Switch, offers a unique, user-friendly way for those with physical limitations, particularly children, to control devices purely by thought. It’s portable, affordable, noninvasive, and bridges a significant gap in the assistive technology market, promising vast growth potential.

 
How have you engaged end-users in the development of Possibility Neurotechnologies?

We’ve employed a user-centered design approach, involving end-users throughout development.

Feedback sessions, usability testing, and pilot programs have been instrumental in refining Think2Switch. This ongoing dialogue ensures our technology meets the real-world needs of those we aim to empower.

 

Can you share some success stories or accomplishments that you’ve achieved since launching?

Prior to our official launch, Think2Switch has been home-tested, resulting in profound success stories. One user insightfully reminded us, “Never underestimate these kids…When we give them a way to show what they know—it’s a light at the end of the tunnel. The possibilities are endless.” Their words reaffirm our mission, and highlight the transformative impact of our product.

Pink and purple tile with white text 'the future is inclusive'
What sets your startup apart from competitors?

Our Think2Switch is the missing link in the BCI landscape. Unlike other products, it translates complex BCI tech into a user-friendly, plug-and-play system that enables thought-controlled interaction with everyday devices. We’ve broken BCI confines, extending their benefits to homes, which truly sets us apart.

WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO YOU TO BE PART OF THE REMARKABLE COMMUNITY?

Being part of the Remarkable community signifies a shared commitment to improving lives through innovative tech. Their support accelerates our goal of making BCIs accessible for those with physical limitations. This alliance represents more than just funding—it’s about transforming futures together.

 

FOLLOW POSSIBILITY NEUROTECHNOLOGIES ON SOCIAL MEDIA

#RA23 Startup Story | Hominid X

WHAT IS YOUR STARTUP AND WHO IS THE TARGET MARKET?

At Hominid X, we build wearable tools that help people to reclaim the use of their hands.

There are an estimated 200 million people worldwide who can’t move their hands to pick up and hold objects, so tasks like eating, personal hygiene, or holding a phone become difficult or even impossible.

A better solution was needed, so we designed “Fiber”, a wearable grasping tool that competes with robotic solutions at an affordable price point.

 
How have you engaged end-users in the development of Hominid X?

Our design process is user-centric to ensure that our products solve the right problems.

Our expertise in manufacturing allows us to quickly try out new product ideas and get them into the hands of our testers.

We keep in touch with them and empower them to speak plainly about their product experience. These friends are critical to our design process – they are motivated problem solvers who often find ways to adapt and manage on their own.

A hand wearing a Hominid X device holding a mobile phone.
A hand wearing a Hominid X device holding a stylus pen to write on the screen of a tablet.
What have you achieved since launching? Can you share some customer success stories or an accomplishment that you’re proud of?

Our biggest wins were made by our users!

One was Felix, the world’s (almost) first double arm transplant recipient, who wanted to relearn how to ride a bike. He uses Fiber to help him hold his bike handles.

Another success was a youth stroke survivor, Megan, who uses our product to help her hold kitchenware. She told us that she loves using Fiber while she makes her cake and macaroons at her new bakery business, Mae’s Bakery in Louisiana

 
What sets your startup apart from competitors?

We approach assistive product design with a lifestyle mindset, not just a medical one.

Our users are people with hobbies and goals; they are not insurance claims.

We’ve demonstrated speed and accuracy with our design choices, and our team has a unique expertise in rapid manufacturing, grasp-aid technology, and user testing.

We’re updating the game by bringing modern wearable standards to the assistive tech space.

 
Where do you want your startup to be in 1 month, 1 year, 10 years? What do you need to get there?

In a year, we’ll have more products and a strong user base. As we grow, we’ll develop more ambitious solutions.

In 10 years, we’ll have therapy systems, aids, and clinical seminars, and be the global brand in wearable assistive tools.

The key elements of our approach will be moving fast, taking feedback, and doing amazing design work – all while focusing on giving delight to our users rather than a “better than nothing” solution. We’re excited!

 
What advice would you give to aspiring disability tech entrepreneurs?

Place a strong emphasis on your product and test it with users, always. Some might downplay the importance of the little details, but be careful. Form is function, so don’t feel bad obsessing a little.

A well-developed and user-centric product will speak for itself. So design like you have fierce competition, even if your design is totally new. Marketing is easier when you get the product right.

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#RA23 Startup Story | Aurie

WHAT IS YOUR STARTUP AND WHO IS THE TARGET MARKET?

Aurie is a medical device start-up that is developing a reusable no-touch intermittent catheter system for people living with neurogenic bladder or urinary retention.

Our products help to increase access to safer no-touch catheters and reduce catheter-associated urinary tract infections, which are a leading cause of death for intermittent catheter users today.

 
How have you engaged end-users in the development of Aurie?

Yes! We have interviewed over 120 individual catheter users about how they use products today, and have held human factors studies to get feedback on prototypes from close to 60 catheter users.

We’re continuing to pursue user research as a means to get user feedback on our product and go-to-market strategy.

 
Can you share some success stories or accomplishments that you’ve achieved since launching?

We haven’t launched yet – the road to getting a medical device FDA approved is a long one.

Graphic design of the Aurie urinary catheters.
What sets your startup apart from competitors?

There are approximately 600,000 people in the United States living with neurogenic bladder and urinary retention, who will typically use 4 to 6 single-use intermittent catheters a day in order to urinate. Altogether, the catheter market in the US is approximately $2 billion.

We are the only company in the catheter market that is focused on developing safely reusable no-touch catheters. Our system allows us to provide safer, infection-reducing no-touch catheters at the current price of single-use standard catheters. This means more people can access this potentially life-saving technology.

WHERE DO YOU WANT YOUR STARTUP TO BE IN 1 MONTH, 1 YEAR, 10 YEARS? 

1 Month 1 Year 10 Years
We plan to build prototypes for FDA testing and to start building relationships with VA hospitals where we will pilot the system with users. We will have received our FDA approval and will start product sales We will have a broad portfolio of durable medical equipment products that are designed in partnership with (not for) our users that help to meet unmet user needs and advance our users' health and independence. To get there, we need funding!
WHAT ADVICE WOULD YOU GIVE TO ASPIRING DISABILITY TECH ENTREPRENEURS?

Some investors will tell you that your market is too small to matter. Don’t listen to them! The work that you’re doing is important.

 

WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO YOU TO BE PART OF THE REMARKABLE COMMUNITY?

It’s incredibly inspiring to be a part of a community where everyone is giving it their all to make a profound difference in the lives of their users – and where everyone is open about the struggles and successes that they face along the way!

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#RA23 Startup Story | Indii

WHAT IS YOUR STARTUP AND WHO IS THE TARGET MARKET?

Indii is on a mission to enable greater independence for people with disabilities.

We’re initially focusing on helping the more than 17 million people worldwide with Cerebral Palsy (CP) and others who have limited mobility and fine motor control.

We’ve developed an adaptive switch, called Sofii, built on the latest smart home standards, designed to open up the many benefits of using this technology to new users.

 
How have you engaged end-users in the development of indii?

Building solutions with and alongside our community is deeply embedded in the way we work. But it’s not always been that way.

The initial inspiration for the work we’re doing was seeing the needs of my youngest sister, Sophie. Sophie has CP and had formed the basis of much of the design work we did, but I hadn’t gone out to speak to other users.

Once we started talking to our users that’s when the project really began to take shape. It is out of these conversations that many of the most innovative features grew.

The Sofii adaptable switch, a dark blue technology device with 4 black buttons one which has a green light on.
The Sofii adaptable switch, connected to a device by an electronic cord.
What sets your startup apart from competitors?

We’re positioning ourselves in an interesting place.

What we’re developing is at the nexus of assistive and smart home technologies.

The user-centred design that we’re bringing to the smart home space deeply considers user-need, particularly for people with a variety of disabilities.

Our focus on delivering a high-quality, attractive product that is at-odds with existing assistive technology that can cost as much as 5x what we’re charging, and lacks that focus on aesthetic design.

We want our approach to accessibility to be replicated by our competitors; the prospect of us achieving a cross-over success in AT and smart home is getting people in both industries excited.

 
What advice would you give to aspiring disability tech entrepreneurs?

Get out there.
Share your idea.
Speak to people.

It’s too easy to hide away developing in isolation. This is problematic for a number of reasons.

Firstly, you’ll build the wrong thing. Getting feedback from people on what you’re doing is important.

And more importantly, you need people. Telling people what you’re working on will greatly improve your chances of taking your business to the next level.

 
What does it mean to you to be part of the Remarkable community?

Remarkable is an incredibly nurturing community. Being supported and challenged by the team and the wider community has enhanced our entrepreneurial journey immeasurably.

 

WHERE DO YOU WANT YOUR STARTUP TO BE IN 1 MONTH, 1 YEAR, 10 YEARS? 

This time next year Sofii will be available via our website in Australia and the UK and through a network of NDIS and charity suppliers in both regions.

In ten years we have aspirations around providing products and services that enable people not only at home, but in public spaces, hotels and beyond.

The care space is full of innovative businesses vying for relevance and market share, and we believe our value will lie in enabling these companies to better create and manage their solutions by handling connectivity of these services with physical places and devices.

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#RA23 Startup Story | MemoRehab

WHAT IS YOUR STARTUP AND WHO IS THE TARGET MARKET?

MEMORehab is an online platform that provides allied health professionals (neuropsychologists, occupational therapists, psychologists, speech pathologists) with tools to deliver intervention programs to neurological patients online.

Our platform supports both patients and clinicians through the rehabilitation journey through a mix of telehealth to connect patients and clinicians (either in a group or individually as part of the intervention program) each week, patient management tools for clinicians to organise patients, data analytics for clinicians to review patient progress, computerized exercises for patients to practice skills they learn in the intervention, educational content so patients can learn about their condition and how to manage it, and inbuilt reminders to help patients attend to tasks.

 
How have you engaged end-users in the development of MEMORehab?

We began our journey by conducting a user experience study interviewing clinicians who had run intervention programs for patients suffering from memory related issues as a result of neurological injury.

From this study, we designed a platform for clinicians to deliver rehabilitation and continued conducting research with clinicians to further develop the platform and understand what tools they needed to run these sorts of interventions in a digital format.

Since then we have engaged both clinicians and patients in user studies and academic research to understand the impact and value of our product. We aim to continue working collaboratively with clinicians and patients to improve our platform.

 
Can you share some success stories or accomplishments that you’ve achieved since launching?

Since launching in February, we have onboarded multiple major hospitals and health districts across the country, in addition to conducting research with major universities and hospitals.

Since our launch, we have had multiple groups of patients use our platform successfully and really enjoy their experience. We are told that patients really engage with the program and really look forward to using MEMORehab each week and meeting with their group using our teleconferencing system, in addition to completing exercises and watching educational content.

Clinicians have told us they really enjoy the system and find it streamlined and easy to use.

What sets your startup apart from competitors?

We are the only service that offers solutions for both patients and clinicians.

Other systems either offer clinicians tools to deliver service online, or offer patients tools to improve their functioning. We offer both and provide clinicians with data about how their patients are engaging with the intervention process.

 
What advice would you give to aspiring disability tech entrepreneurs?

You will have some good days and some bad days…some times bad months.

Just do not forget why you started and remember to love what you are doing.

What does it mean to you to be part of the Remarkable community?

We are proud to be a part of the Remarkable community and be recognised as a company that is capable of making real change in this space. Being backed by Remarkable means they believe in our mission and that we can succeed.

WHERE DO YOU WANT YOUR STARTUP TO BE IN 1 MONTH, 1 YEAR, 10 YEARS? 

1 Month 1 Year 10 Years
We want to onboard 5 new clients and finish our research portal. We want to have broken even and be receiving our first recurring revenue from current customers in addition to having all the features on the platform polished. We also aim to have additional interventions added to the platform. We would like to be a multinational company with multiple interventions that can be delivered in a flexible way, helping patients achieve their rehabilitation goals across the globe.
 
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#RA23 Startup Story | The Care Co

WHAT IS YOUR STARTUP AND WHO IS THE TARGET MARKET?

The Care Co is an in-classroom software that teaches students aged 5-12 mental health lessons in school.

Inspired by self-paced teaching tools in the Reading, Writing, and Maths spaces, The Care Co designed a unique evidence-based, ability-based way to teach fundamental coping skills and scale psychology best practice in a learner-friendly way.

Our first targets include the 42 million students aged 5-12 in Australia, New Zealand, Canada, United States and the United Kingdom – with a comfortable lead pipeline of approximately 379,000 students well before our Australian go-live date, we’re off to a good start towards achieving our goal!

Priced as a per enrolled student per month SAAS subscription model, 1 million students would see us growing on $60.5 million in ARR.

 
How have you engaged end-users in the development of The Care Co?

We had a number of stakeholders that needed to be included in the design and development of our software–including young people. Several of these key roles including school leadership team members (the economic buyer or customer), in-classroom educators (the gatekeeper), and parents and guardians who are a great ally of ours in the kids mental health space.

While students are the ultimate end user of our product, our GTM, marketing, acquisition, and retention strategies (alongside development!) had to consider the opportunities, challenges, and gaps for each of these roles.

 
Can you share some success stories or accomplishments that you’ve achieved since launching?

We’re finishing Beta Testing across the Australian Winter 2023 season (Terms 2 and 3 in Australian schools).

Now partnering with the CPA to give some schools a free trial period as part of their STEP-tember physical health and wellness program participation, the rest of the Australian primary education community will be able to start procuring licences (and using!) The Care Co from October 2023.

We’re super excited to cross the major milestones of both free participants and going live – because the pre-emptive response and interest from the community has been both great and warming!

Four members from The Care Co team seated on a couch, smiling at the camera and wearing The Care Co t-shirts.
What sets your startup apart from competitors?
  • Our evidence-base – we’re all about scaling best practice in the paediatric psych space;
  • Our ability-based curriculum – we’ve stepped away from traditional age and grade based lessons and design a curriculum that ranges from students who need more support with their learning through to independent learners who can choose and action activities on their own.
  • We’ve gone this route to ensure all young people,  regardless of their ability-level or learning needs, can have a sense of agency in choosing their mental health activities for the day and learn new skills and habits they can action (almost!) on their own.
 
What advice would you give to aspiring disability tech entrepreneurs?

Come up with your development ‘thesis’ from day one. We design for students with disabilities or from trauma-informed backgrounds first because they are some of the highest risk young people for mental health challenges both now and later in life.

Through this framework so many other decisions can be made much more easily and it all begins with nailing down that key group.

 
What does it mean to you to be part of the Remarkable community?

So much – Remarkable is a humbling, brilliant, and kind group of tech lovers, entrepreneurs, program coordinators, and mentors who believe the world can be a better place.

 

WHERE DO YOU WANT YOUR STARTUP TO BE IN 1 MONTH, 1 YEAR, 10 YEARS? 

1 Month 1 Year 10 Years
Still in the midst of Beta Testing and confirming the true impact and outcomes of our software on students and educators alike. Definitely rolling into (or already rolled into) the New Zealand education community and finalising School Year 2024-25 with some US schools. No longer accepting that fundamental mental health literacy isn't a part of the core school curriculum. The same way we would never accept an education provider to forgo literacy or numeracy, we want The Care Co to pave the way for changing the core curriculum to include this critical life skill.
 
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#RA23 Startup Story | Enabled Play

WHAT IS YOUR STARTUP AND WHO IS THE TARGET MARKET?

Enabled Play is a platform that gives users the ability to augment and control their technology in ways that work best for them using voice controls, face expressions, body gestures, virtual buttons, and more.

For businesses, we provide the ability to create new levels of equitable access to their platforms and services while also being able to spotlight their services to our users as a new accessible place to be whether it be a game, a bank, a streaming platform, or productivity tool.

 
How have you engaged end-users in the development of ENABLED PLAY?

Our platform is built for people with disabilities and as well as with them.

From the beginning of our R&D to each feature implementation, we involve our community of users, testers, and supporters to provide as much feedback and review before we even get to the design stage. We have a group of about 2000 people of varying ages and abilities who participate in that constant feedback loop.

We even talk with a number of our users about our naming conventions and brand naming.

Can you share some success stories or accomplishments that you’ve achieved since launching?

We’ve built an amazing team of icons in this industry that share in our vision of equitable access for everyone. We’ve also introduced thousands of users to our platform who love and use Enabled Play every day.

The 450 characters can’t do the number of quotes and amazing feedback we’ve received justice, but here’s one that is close to encapsulating it from Aaron Price at AbleGamers:

“The current adaptive gaming scene is in a messy hodgepodge of tech. Everyone’s disability requires a unique solution. If a person with disabilities wants to maximize their gaming potential, their controls often necessitates a mixture of assistive technology pulled from many different avenues that don’t logically correlate when people think about videogames. For individuals with disabilities, this makes the process of gaming very confusing, extremely expensive, and time-consuming.

Enabled Play controls have taken huge strides to combine that patchwork of assistive tech that allows disabled gamers to control their videogames into one device all while including an easy-to-understand interface.​”

What sets your startup apart from competitors?

There’s a few things that set us apart:

  1. We provide many different augmented controls that adapt to our users over time, prioritizing personalization and abilities over the technology.
  2. Our speech recognition and computer vision models for face expression and body gesture controls also run entirely offline to ensure the fastest performance and absolute privacy
  3. Our users pay nothing to use these new levels of accessible controls. Our business model does not implement a “disability tax” and instead removes it.
  4. For businesses, we provide new levels of accessibility beyond the box check of compliance. We provide personalized controls for each person so they can bring their “enabled play profile” to your apps, services, games, and more.
  5. We help drive new customers to our partners by introducing our users to the services that are accessible to them and where they can bring their profile of controls.
 
What advice would you give to aspiring disability tech entrepreneurs?

My biggest piece of advice is to build everything at every step with your users first. They should be top of mind at every step of the way and involved in those steps too. From concept and design to implementation and iteration.

If you’re building for people with disabilities, build it with as many people with disabilities as you can manage. Everyone’s experience in this world is entirely different – lean into that instead of shying away from that.

Also don’t just build a product, build a business. A proper go to market and business model that scales will help you reach your goals of impact far more than just a product will.

 
What does it mean to you to be part of the Remarkable community?

It means being part of a community of people who all wake up every day driven to make a difference in the world. Whether that difference be to a single person or to everyone, we’re surrounded by a group of people who want to change lives and leave a positive impact on the world.

 

WHERE DO YOU WANT YOUR STARTUP TO BE IN 1 MONTH, 1 YEAR, 10 YEARS? 

1 Month 1 Year 10 Years
We want to be in market with our production apps that have been tested by thousands of users with varying abilities around the world to help drive further adoption by users who are excited to use these new controls. We'd like to be a household name in the world of accessibility for people with disabilities and integrated into dozens of services where we provide massive value to both our customers and our users. We want to be a household name everywhere and be a publicly traded company that the world is excited to root for while we continue to innovate in the ways that people interact with technology while being able to say we've already made a massive impact on the accessibility and inclusion space.
 
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#RA23 Startup Story | XR Navigation

WHAT IS YOUR STARTUP AND WHO IS THE TARGET MARKET?

XR Navigation is building Audiom: The world’s most inclusive digital visual, auditory, and tactile map viewer and editor.

Our initial customer segment are businesses, governments, universities, and colleges who care about inclusion.

Next, we will focus on businesses, governments, universities, and colleges who are required to be accessible.

Eventually, we hope to partner with existing mapping tools like Google Maps, ESRI, Apple Maps, the different Microsoft mapping tools, and Mapbox to make their maps inclusive so all maps on the web can be accessible to the greatest number of people.

There are around 24 customer segments in this $22 billion industry that is growing at a 22% CAGR, and each segment has its own unique needs and purchasing process. University and colleges, who we are focusing on now, are a $105 million market segment.

 
How have you engaged end-users in the development of XR Navigation?

We are employing all blind developers to build the non-visual experience, and sighted map accessibility experts to build the visual experience.

We have run co-designs with around 30 blind participants, and evaluated the system on another 20 blind participants. Here are the papers we have published already, and there are 2 pending publication:

  • Paper: Biggs, B., Toth, C., Stockman, T., Coughlan, J., & Walker, B. (2022). Evaluation of a Non-Visual Auditory Choropleth and Travel Map Viewer. Published in the International Conference on Auditory Display, 2022. PMCID: PMC10010675.
  • Paper: Biggs, B., Coughlan, J., Coppin, P. (2019). Design And Evaluation Of An Audio Game-Inspired Auditory Map Interface. Published in the International Conference on Auditory Display, 2019.
  • Master’s Thesis: Biggs, B. (2019). Designing Accessible Nonvisual Maps. Ontario College of Art and Design University.
 
Can you share some success stories or accomplishments that you’ve achieved since launching?
  • We have 3 customers.
  • We received a Small business technology transfer grant (STTR) from the National Institutes of Health.
  • We won 1st place in the Klaus startup competition in March 2023
  • We installed an interactive 3D model map and digital audio map of the Magical Bridge Playground.
Campus map with pop-ups
Campus map with tool tip
What sets your startup apart from competitors?

We have the ONLY digital map viewer and editor that’s accessible to blind users.

 
What advice would you give to aspiring disability tech entrepreneurs?
  • Get people with disabilities on your team if they aren’t already. User-lead design is the best. This will mean being a remote company, but that’s normal now.
  • Participate in something like Remarkable or the Impact Center incubator if possible, it is a great experience.
  • It’s a bad idea to touch what the users think is working, there’s so much not working that it’s not worth your time to make a 20% improvement on something. Make a 500% or more improvement, or give access for the first time to something for a group. There are so many inaccessible things in the world, that it’s not worth doing anything less.
 
What does it mean to you to be part of the Remarkable community?

I am connected to mentors, startups, and coaches who know about disability tech, who care enough to make things inclusive, and who give feedback I trust because I know they are in this space.

 

WHERE DO YOU WANT YOUR STARTUP TO BE IN 1 MONTH, 1 YEAR, 10 YEARS? 

1 Month 1 Year 10 Years
New website with a demo campus map. 6 customers with 3 being colleges and universities and an STTR grant phase II. Maybe raised a seed round. On every map (or 95% of the maps) on the internet.
 
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#RA23 Startup Story | Virtetic

WHAT IS YOUR STARTUP AND WHO IS THE TARGET MARKET?

Virtetic is creating game-based virtual reality interventions for people living with limb loss.

Our VR interventions are aimed at helping people start their rehabilitation and prosthesis use training as soon as they recover from surgery.

 
How have you engaged end-users in the development of Virtetic?

We’ve taken a co-design approach from the start. From the problem-solution validation stage to play testing each iteration of our VR interventions. We engage with prosthesis users and clinicians to understand their needs and wants. What is important to them? What are their goals? How can VR support their goals. Through this approach, we make sure that whatever we create has a purpose and supports our users.

 
Can you share some success stories or accomplishments that you’ve achieved since launching?

We are yet to launch our first product, but every engagement we have with someone new is encouraging. People meet our VR experiences with excitement and always are generous with their feedback.

One big this is that we’ve been collaborating with the #1 prosthesis manufacturer, Ottobock, for a few years now. It’s amazing to have their support and advice along the way.

What sets your startup apart from competitors?

Our expertise and approach.

Virtetic was founded following five years of virtual reality and prosthetics research, and over 20 years of research on human motor learning and clinical care in the field of prosthetics. This makes the Virtetic team a world leader in this space.

Our co-design and game-based approach has helped use create unique VR interventions that are clinically relevant, and meaningful for people’s goals post limb loss. While the game-based part helps guide people through their journey in an approachable way that adapts to the needs of each individual.

 
What advice would you give to aspiring disability tech entrepreneurs?

I cannot stress enough the idea of “user-in-the-loop”.

I think most people in disability tech are close to the problem, so they’ll take this approach anyway. But this can always be taken up a notch, engaging with as many people as possible. Everyone’s lived experience is different, and you will always learn something new from people. So, approach things with a curious mind, and continuously engage with the experts!

 
What does it mean to you to be part of the Remarkable community?

Support.

We couldn’t be happier with how welcoming and supportive the Remarkable community is. Everyone has made their best effort to help us out and make us feel part of the community. So, we are keen to contribute back to the Remarkable family as much as we can.

WHERE DO YOU WANT YOUR STARTUP TO BE IN 1 MONTH, 1 YEAR, 10 YEARS? 

1 Month 1 Year 10 Years
We would like to see our first VR intervention being piloted at our existing partner clinics. We would like to be offering multiple VR solutions for people living with different types of amputations. We want to be the standard of care for pre-prosthetic training and rehabilitation, and offering solutions beyond the prosthetics industry.
A person standing in front of a computer screen wearing a virtual reality headset and interacting with Virtetic technology.
 
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#RA23 Startup Story | Springrose

WHAT IS YOUR STARTUP AND WHO IS THE TARGET MARKET?

At Springrose, we design adaptive intimate apparel that improves quality of life for the 200M+ women worldwide who have limited mobility. Our products help women get dressed quickly, painlessly, and independently, thereby restoring dignity and agency every day. The adaptive apparel market is expected to reach $400B globally by 2026.

 
How have you engaged end-users in the development of Springrose?

Our product was co-developed with 500+ women and 35+ clinicians across the discovery, development, and testing process. They’ve been involved every step of the way and every product detail comes from either a user or a clinician partner.

 
Can you share some success stories or accomplishments that you’ve achieved since launching?

Some customer success stories include women who have chronic pain or only one mobile arm being able to get dressed independently or experiencing less pain while getting dressed or undressed.

What sets your startup apart from competitors?

What sets us apart is that our product does not compromise on function, beauty, or support. Existing adaptive bras have at least two of the following problems:

  1. Only work for minor forms of limited mobility or dexterity;
  2. Are size-limited;
  3. Are unsupportive;
  4. Are unattractive; and
  5. Are unfriendly for women with a pacemaker, defibrillator, or other implants because they use magnets.
 
What advice would you give to aspiring disability tech entrepreneurs?

Don’t design in isolation and don’t put too much weight on your own experience when developing solutions. Make sure you talk to as many people as possible because it’s important to not design for a single story. Everyone’s experience is unique, but there are common threads that will emerge as you talk to people. Design for that shared experience to best serve the people you want to support.

 
What does it mean to you to be part of the Remarkable community?

The Remarkable community is a fun, supportive, and ambitious place where people are seeking to change the status quo for the better. Every founder is driven, thoughtful, and capable, while all the mentors and other people who support us are kind, uplifting, and experienced champions for the founders.

 

WHERE DO YOU WANT YOUR STARTUP TO BE IN 10 YEARS? 

In 10 years, we want to be the go-to place for adaptive intimate apparel and resources around women’s health at the intersection of disability.

For now we would love for anyone interested in joining us to reach out — whether that’s to provide input, test product, learn about roles when they become available, partner with us, or develop content.

All are welcome as we seek to improve quality of life.

 
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