HabitAware Inc. has received a $1 million grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF) for two years of further research and development for its Keen bracelet, the company announced Thursday.
It's HabitAware's third research grant and its second NSF Small Business Innovation Research grant. The company received a $225,000 grant from the NSF in 2019, and has now raised about $1.6 million from grants and other non-dilutive funding, according to CEO Sameer Kumar said.
Minneapolis-based HabitAware makes Keen, a bracelet that helps people break body-focused repetitive behaviors (BFRBs) like skin picking or nail biting. It's also raised about $1 million in investor capital, but mostly tries to fund itself through its revenue, Kumar said. The company has eight employees and tens of thousands of customers.
The grant will help HabitAware develop Keen's gesture-detection accuracy, as well as continue working on a sensor that was developed with funding from the first NSF grant. The new research could potentially help HabitAware treat mental health conditions beyond BFRBs, but Kumar declined to elaborate on what those conditions might be.
Keen has already found novel uses during 2020. The device has seen use with physicians and other health care professionals who use it to avoid touching their faces to prevent the spread of Covid-19, co-founder Aneela Idnani Kumar told Minne Inno earlier this year.
HabitAware has gained significant local and national attention in recent years following its Grand Prize win at the 2018 Minnesota Cup. That same year, Keen was named one of the best inventions of 2018 by Time Magazine, while in 2019 Aneela was named to a national list of young executives complied by the Business Journal.
