Israeli start-up X-Trodes, which has developed wearable technology for sleep monitoring and muscle recovery, has raised $4.5m in a seed round.

The bio-convergence company has developed wearables for electrophysiological measurement and analytics. It is backed by over 15 years of academic research and scientifically validated patents.

The company has developed a wireless smart skin that consists of a soft, dry, multi-electrode patch array that aims to reduce hospital and clinic workload and ease patients’ lives. The skin uses machine learning to provide objective signal analysis and monitoring for everyday activity in any environment.

The two first products that X-Trodes brings to market are:

• Medical-grade sleep monitoring: a wireless system for sleep monitoring, especially for neurological and psychiatric disorders. The single patch for multi-modality measurement retrieves meaningful insights and diagnostics from patients’ own beds, in their natural environment.
• Muscle recovery: A flexible wearable system that prevents muscle injuries and accelerates recovery by monitoring electrophysiology function in dynamic environments and analysing every muscle with wireless AI-driven insights.

The $4.5m seed round was led by Japan Israel High Tech Ventures (Chartered Group), Welltech and Jeremy Coller.

“We found in X-Trodes an outstanding founding team that developed a product that can profoundly improve the quality of life for us all,” said Eyal Agmoni, managing general partner at Japan Israel High Tech Ventures. “Patients can monitor and treat neurological disorders and recover from muscle injuries from the comfort of their own homes and beds. This team is building a revolutionary solution which is validated by multiple peer-reviewed journals as well as clinical and safety tests. The solution is set to become a leader in a rapidly growing market.”

Furthermore, X-Trodes products are used by researchers and scientists, allowing them to expand research beyond their labs and conduct tests, monitoring and predictions on people in their natural environments and on the go.

“In seven years, there will be more hospitalisations at home than in hospitals,” said Ziv Peremen, X-Trodes co-founder and CEO. “A wide range of laboratory tests available only in hospitals can be performed at home with X-Trodes, without compromising their quality or reliability. In terms of our capabilities, muscle recovery and sleep monitoring are just the beginning. We are proud to partner with tier-one strategic partners that bring our ground-breaking products to new patients and doctors around the world.”

Galit Horovitz and Amir Alroy, co-founders of Welltech Ventures, added: “X-Trodes is a real revolution in the field of welltech and health tech. Beyond the first go to market sectors of sleep monitoring and muscle rehabilitation, we believe X-Trodes is a ground-breaking platform that can democratise expensive medical routines and procedures making them affordable and more available to the public.”

X-Trodes was founded by a team of experts in multidisciplinary fields, ranging from science and engineering to business development. Its core technology is based on an intellectual property that was developed over the last decade at Yael Hanein’s nano-technology laboratory at Tel Aviv University. The company was the 2020 winner of the Coller Start-Up Competition at Tel Aviv University. Headquartered in Israel, it has 12 employees.