Startups like Mannequin Well being are pushing into prevention and optimization, utilizing on a regular basis tech to ship superior efficiency insights
Mannequin Well being has raised €800,000 ($1 million) in pre-seed funding to show any smartphone right into a lab-grade motion evaluation device, utilizing AI and biomechanics to supply clinics and trainers with insights that it says had been as soon as solely attainable with €100,000 price of apparatus.
Apex Capital, a sports-focused funding agency backed by skilled athletes, led the spherical with participation from Syndicate One, LeanSquare, imec.istart and several other angel buyers, together with tech entrepreneurs, bodily therapists and an undisclosed worldwide European soccer participant. The startup says the capital will help product improvement, adoption in sports activities clinics and organizations and three foundational hires.
Launched in 2024, the Belgian-American startup was based by Stanford researchers Antoine Falisse and Scott Uhlrich, later joined by former McKinsey director Nicolas Bellemans. A dozen sports activities clinics and rehab facilities within the U.S. and Europe already use Mannequin Well being’s expertise, together with international sports activities model Decathlon by its SportsLab R&D middle.
Put merely, Mannequin Well being shrinks advanced lab setups into two iOS gadgets and an app. Practitioners report video by the app, which calibrates the gadgets and uploads footage to the cloud. From there, laptop imaginative and prescient, AI and biomechanics algorithms generate a 3D mannequin inside minutes, producing time-series information like joint angles, center-of-mass trajectories and angular velocities. The system then interprets these numbers into metrics tied to damage threat and efficiency, giving trainers and clinicians lab-grade insights.
“Each athlete and affected person deserves world-class motion evaluation, and each practitioner ought to have reasonably priced, lab-grade instruments that match seamlessly into their workflow,” Mannequin Well being CEO Falisse mentioned. “With smartphones solely, we will now unlock insights that when required €100,000+ tools, making high-performance motion evaluation really scalable.”
Pricing begins at $129 a month for the Starter plan, which incorporates lab-grade movement seize, automated evaluation modules and 10 periods per thirty days. The Professional plan at $199 expands that to 25 periods, whereas Professional Plus, a custom-priced tier, affords 50 to limitless periods, multi-user entry and API integrations for bigger organizations.
Koen Bosma, accomplice at Apex Capital, famous that the attraction lies in how Model Health takes a course of as soon as confined to labs and places it immediately within the arms of athletes and clinicians.
“They make the lab go to the athletes,” Bosma mentioned. “Their expertise has the potential to change into the worldwide normal for a way professionals measure, analyze and enhance motion. We’re very excited for the journey forward.”
Mannequin Well being’s elevate additionally displays one other shift in health and wellness, the place gyms and clinics are converging and information and evaluation have gotten as important as dumbbells and treadmills. Maxiom and DNAthlete, in the meantime, are experimenting with genetics and AI to personalize training and recovery for elite athletes. Match:match is pushing in an analogous path with its Replicate 3D physique scanning system, recently deployed at the Penn Relays to study correlations between body composition, performance and injury risk.