A Columbus telehealth startup won a $1.5 million, 18-month contract for its software to help prevent musculoskeletal injuries in the U.S. Air Force, and was selected for an AI accelerator.
IncludeHealth Inc., which makes telehealth software for physical therapy and other musculoskeletal care, has tripled its customer numbers so far this year in addition to those sources of non-dilutive funding, founder and CEO Ryan Eder said in a statement to Columbus Inno.
The Air Force contract, announced Tuesday, and the accelerator run by Silicon Valley-based Vercel Inc. "bolster each other," Eder said.
"The work with the military expands our platform into human performance movements and metrics that also become available to all commercial partners," he said. "Vercel’s accelerator will add fuel to leveraging the power of AI across both military and commercial applications."
One of Columbus Inno's Startups to Watch for 2023, IncludeHealth raised $11 million in venture capital in February. Its clients include hospital systems, orthopedic practices, physical therapist networks and the military.
Its MSK-OS platform, which launched in 2020, uses computer vision to power telehealth physical therapy sessions and monitoring – analyzing the patient's movements as they do at-home exercises to ensure the motions are correct and documenting their progress. The patient can use their own device and doesn't need wearable sensors or other hardware.
The military contract extends the capabilities to fitness regimens: Working with the Air Force's 2nd Air Support Operations Squadron, the software will "autonomously deliver mission-specific training protocols," according to a release, and collect data as service members do the exercises so their performance can be adjusted to prevent injury.
"Musculoskeletal injuries are a major cause of lost productivity and disability in the military, and we believe our technology can objectively evaluate performance and de-risk the potential for musculoskeletal injuries," Eder said in the release.
The conditioning regimens developed for the military will also be available to commercial customers.
Meanwhile, Eder is in the second of six weeks of remote and in-person events for the Vercel accelerator. IncludeHealth is one of 40 startups and entrepreneurs selected from more than 1,500 applications.
Based in San Francisco, Vercel makes web development applications. The accelerator comes with up to $850,000 in usage credits offered by various artificial intelligence platforms including ChatGPT maker OpenAI, Hugging Face and Modal Labs.
About half of IncludeHealth's nearly 25 employees are in Central Ohio. The startup has a Cincinnati presence and was briefly headquartered there. CincyTech led its latest investment round, with participation by Dublin-based Tamarind Hill.
