OxiWear, A First Non-Intrusive Wearable For Medical-Grade, Continuous Oxygen Monitoring, Raises $1.25 Million In Funding

Hypoxia (low oxygen in your tissues) is known as one of the deadliest injuries anyone can face. Severe hypoxia can result in cardiac arrest, stroke, or worst-case, death; even if you survive, you may still end up with lifelong permanent scarring to your vital organs, especially to your lungs. It is caused by hypoxemia (low oxygen in your blood) which is a state when your blood doesn’t carry enough oxygen to your tissues to meet your body’s needs. So, it’s extremely important for anyone to have a timely alert on their oxygen levels. 

10% of the global population is prone to hypoxia due to pulmonary hypertension and other cardiovascular diseases, and 70% of those who suffer are women. 

One of those people is Shavini Fernando. This young woman is a patient with severe pulmonary hypertension caused by Eisenmenger’s Syndrome – a long-term complication of an unrepaired heart defect that someone was born with, causing blood to circulate abnormally in your heart and lungs. Like any other patient with pulmonary hypertension, Fernando is severely prone to silent hypoxia. “This has caused me multiple cardiac arrests (four to be precise) and multiple hypoxic strokes where I had to hit my chest and revive myself on my own, as there was not enough time to call for help or 911,” she starts her story.  

When she faced these episodes and discussed this situation with her physicians at Johns Hopkins University Hospital, she realized that this all happened because she had no indication when her oxygen levels were falling below safe levels. At that time, doctors were challenging Fernando’s independence and questioning if it was safe for her to live alone. 

“But for me, this was a simple fire-alarm situation; all I needed was an alert in time when my oxygen levels were falling, so I would know when to call for help before it gets to life-threatening levels.” 

That’s how the idea for OxiWear was born. OxiWear is an ear-wearable that continuously monitors the blood oxygen levels of the wearer and gives them pro-active haptic alerts as the oxygen levels are falling below safe thresholds. It sends an emergency text alert with their location to emergency contacts to ensure they receive the help they need in time. Currently, there is no device available in the market that does medical-grade, continuous oxygen monitoring on an active person. They all provide spot readings, batched data, or continuous readings while you are sleeping. “But what we need is continuous readings while we are on the move. Therefore, OxiWear will be the first non-intrusive wearable that would provide continuous readings at medical-grade accuracy while you are out enjoying your life,” explains Fernando. 

Fernando designed and developed the first prototype of OxiWear as a solution for herself, to help her retain her independence without letting the disease define her life.

OxiWear’s main users will be chronic disease patients who are prone to hypoxia, especially those with cardiovascular and respiratory conditions such as pulmonary hypertension, COPD (chronic obstructive pulmonary disease), cystic fibrosis, pulmonary fibrosis, long-Covid, and many more. 

“An average hypoxic-related emergency room visit for one patient costs the healthcare system an average of $40,000. This is mainly because a patient has no data to show the physicians when they get to the ER and must undergo a variety of medical tests. By having an alert in time, a patient can avoid most of these ER visits by performing the basic first-aid steps at home; they can receive personalized treatment when they arrive at the ER by sharing oxygen data with their physicians. This will save thousands of dollars for the patient as well as the health care system,” adds Fernando. 

In addition to the patient population, extreme and high-performance athletes in high cardiovascular, high-altitude sports, and high-altitude training represents another market for OxiWear. These athletes are also prone to hypoxic injuries such as acute mountain sickness and are at risk of scarring their lungs by overexertion with low oxygen levels in their bodies. According to Fernando, they all need medical-grade readings, but the standard device that is currently available and what everyone uses is the FDA-approved finger cuff pulse oximeter.  These devices only provide readings while a user is still;  if you stop exertion to check your oxygen levels, you may have already normalized. Therefore, you don’t know what your oxygen levels are while you are performing, or if you have acclimatized ensuring that it is safe for you to continue your activities. Those readings are what’s important, as they are the numbers that keep you informed if you are going to hypoxic levels.

“This is mainly why we developed OxiWear as an ear-wearable so that everyone can receive medical-grade readings and low oxygen alerts in a timely manner, without intruding on their daily activities, and while they are performing. A timely alert when blood oxygen levels are dropping can save lives and prevent severe permanent scarring to the vital organs.” 

According to Fernando, when we would total up by taking different disease totals, such as asthma, epilepsy, POTS syndrome, sleep apnea, and autoimmune diseases, 40+ million chronic disease patients have conditions that would need continuous oxygen monitoring as an episode indicator. In addition to this, with cockpit hypoxia being the number one safety issue in naval aviation, OxiWear has the potential to work with the military and fire departments, providing a safety device to avoid any hypoxic incidents when exposed to low air quality or high-altitude situations.  

Investors have recognized the potential of this innovation and have poured in $1.3 million into the business in its latest funding round. 

“Our initial pre-seed funding goal was $750,000, but we ended up oversubscribing the round,” shares Fernando. The round was led by the GAP Fund, an investment program of the Virginia Innovation Partnership Corporation (VIPC), formerly CIT, and the company received re-investments from previous supporters, Ted Leonsis and The Paul & Rose Carter Foundation with new investments from Future Communities Capital, Gaingels, Halcyon Fund, Hourglass Venture Partners, TiE DC, and Boston Chapters, Tysons Angel Group, and Paul Caicedo.

Fundraising at the beginning of the pandemic was challenging for Fernando as investors were not willing to invest and not everyone understood the need for oxygen monitoring. She had to explain its importance over and over again. But as the Covid-19 pandemic continued, severe hypoxia came to the forefront and people started to understand its importance. “This made fundraising easier for us because sadly, the pandemic increased our total market size. And now, everyone has a better understanding of why oxygen monitoring is so important.”

With trademarks and patents issued in the U.S. and in SE Asia, the company is currently conducting beta testing to release the consumer device in July 2022 and working on getting its FDA approvals. Working with some signature hospital networks on future research opportunities is on the horizon as well. 

“Our long-term vision is to become the next wearable trend among all age groups, providing style with accuracy to help prevent hypoxic injuries and ultimately, to save lives,” concludes Fernando. Indeed, I have no doubt the future of this startup is very bright.