Boston hardware startup Rest Devices announced Thursday that it has raised $1.3 million in seed funding led by The Experiment Fund and joined by Boston area angel investors including Koa Labs’ Andy Palmer, Nuland & Arshad Inc. and others. The startup raised $500,000 in seed in 2011, bringing total financing to $1.8 million.
Rest Devices will put the new capital towards the commercialization of Mimo, its hallmark product – a baby onesie, equipped with sensors that record data on the baby's position in bed, body temperature, restlessness levels and respiration while he or she sleeps. Once collected, the data is transmitted in real-time seamlessly to the smartphone of a parent or caregiver.
Parents can examine their baby's health, sleep and overall well-being through weekly and longer-term reports. The monitor also monitors the baby's breathing patterns to sense if and when he or she stops breathing to prevent associated fatalities and reduce parents' stress.
According to the Wall Street Journal, Rest Devices has already secured a deal to sell the Mimo through a prominent retailer, a U.S. chain whose name the company cannot disclose, starting in January 2014. The Mimo Kit, which includes three teched-out onesies and the base station that transmits the data to smartphones, will likely have a pricetag around $199.
Rest Devices currently employs six full-time in Downtown Boston, but is on the hunt to hire about 10 more electrical and software engineers, logistics and marketing experts in the next year, according to the article. The company was founded by MIT grads Dulcie Maddon, Carson Darling and Thomas Lipoma.
To learn more about Rest Devices, take a look at the video below:
