Local Startup Developing Wearable Posture Device Raises $450,000

Source: Sacramento Business Journal, Mark Anderson
Photo: Farid Ismaylizada is the founder of Technovate Venture Studio, which supported Smart Spinal Solution Inc. as it raised $450,000. (COURTESY OF TECHNOVATE INVESTMENTS LLC)

Rancho Cordova startup Smart Spinal Solutions Inc. has raised $450,000 to complete product development of a smart wearable device to improve posture.

Smart Spinal is a company being supported by Rancho Cordova-based Technovate Venture Studio, which seeks to develop local companies using intellectual property and innovation developed by entrepreneurs in Azerbaijan.

Smart Spinal plans to have its product developed by the end of this year, and then find a market and more funding for it through an Indiegogo crowdfunding campaign in November, said Ingrid Rosten, head of business development with Technovate.

The crowdfunding campaign will seek to get about 2,000 of its Lia smart wearables into use to be able to get feedback and market traction, she said.

The initial funding came from angel investors out of New York, Rosten said.

She said the Lia uses artificial intelligence to train people to improve posture via their smartphones working with a wearable device that users put on their shoulders. Improving posture is seen as an important way to reduce back pain and strain.

The company anticipates a $40 price for the Lia device along with a $20 annual subscription to use the software and app, she said.

Technovate Venture Studio was founded at the end of last year by Farid Ismayilzada, an Azerbaijan native who now lives in Davis. He’s been an entrepreneur in San Jose, New York and Azerbaijan.

Ismayilzada stresses that his venture studio is not an accelerator or an incubator. “Those models offer training and mentorship, but they rely on the founder to move forward.”

In his venture studio model, mentors and consultants get actively involved in the company to complete the team.

In former Soviet states like Azerbaijan, he said, there are many technically skilled students and developers, but few opportunities for them to build startups.

“In those countries the academic system is not developed to support entrepreneurship,” he said.

Rosten founded the International Business Incubator in San Jose in 1995 and was its managing director for a decade, which is where she met Ismayilzada. She worked as a consultant with the Sacramento Area Regional Technology Alliance for nine years, and she was the founding director of CleanStart in Sacramento in 2006, which she managed until 2014, when SARTA closed. CleanStart, a nonprofit that supports the development of clean technology ventures in Northern California, is still active.

Ismayilzada said he chose the Sacramento area because it’s close to investors in Silicon Valley but with far cheaper rent. He said he was also attracted by access to students from the University of California Davis and California State University Sacramento to be employees at the companies that go through Technovate.

Smart Spinal Solutions is the first company to be announced publicly as a member of Technovate. An electric generation technology company in Davis is also a Technovate member, but it is still in stealth mode, Rosten said.

https://www.bizjournals.com/sacramento/news/2020/07/24/smart-spinal-solutions-raises-money