Bloomer Tech, a Cambridge-based healthtech company behind an electrocardiogram device designed to look and feel like a bra, has raised $3 million in seed funding.
The round was led by Material Impact, with participation from One Brave Idea and several angel investors, including Boston Scientific co-founder John Abele.
With the funding, Bloomer plans to more than double its headcount by the end of the year. It will also scale its production, improve user experience and increase its paid pilot program, through which people can sign up to test out the electrocardiogram bra.
Founded in 2017 by graduates of MIT's Computational Cardiovascular Research Group and Integrated Design and Management cardiovascular program, Bloomer's smart bra works essentially by embedding patented, medical-grade fabric sensors with built-in machine learning algorithms into the garment. The idea is to easily collect data from a wide array of people, since most women already wear a bra every day. Bloomer's team is working on expanding its size options to make the smart bra accessible to more people.
"In health care, woman have been underrepresented," Bloomer CEO Alicia Chong told BostInno. "Then, when you dig deeper into cardiovascular disease, you realize that it's the No. 1 killer worldwide of men and woman, but we're still at the infancy of really understanding female cardiac health."
One of Bloomer's investors, One Brave Idea, consists of a group of scientists working together to understand the earliest stages of coronary heart disease under the leadership of Dr. Calum MacRae, vice chair for scientific innovation in the Department of Medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital. Chong said Bloomer will be collaborating with the group this year. Already, Bloomer has had traction with women’s heart programs at multiple hospitals in the Boston area.
Bloomer has participated in MIT delta v as well as the "Project Entrepreneur" accelerator at Thrive Global, Arianna Huffington's wellness company.
Chong is excited about the prospect for Bloomer to transform the femtech space. San Antonio, Texas-based market research firm Frost & Sullivan estimated in 2018 that femtech had a market potential of $50 billion by 2025—and that it was time for clinical diagnostics, biopharmaceutical and medical device companies to tap into that opportunity.
"A lot of women-led companies have products for outside of your body, like the beauty industry or the apparel industry," Chong said. "I think femtech is going to do that for inside of your body as well. To understand it better, and customize and personalize health care for inside of our bodies as well. This is going to be one of the first devices tailored specifically to women."
Read our 2016 profile of Bloomer Tech here.
