Abbott tells CES it’s getting into consumer biowearables

US medical device maker, Abbott, is moving into making general purpose consumer biosensing wearables. The company has been making continuous glucose monitor (CGM) hardware for diabetes management for years (since 2014) — but in a healthtech keynote at CES yesterday, Abbott’s chairman and CEO, Robert B Ford, announced it’s developing a new line of consumer […]

Four weeks as an Ultrahuman ‘Cyborg’

For four weeks during 2021, this TechCrunch reporter took the plunge and tested a “metabolic fitness” service from Bangalore-based startup Ultrahuman. The tracker program, branded Cyborg, uses arm-mounted medical grade hardware to get a real-time read-out of your blood glucose — using that dynamic data-point to power a quantified health service that scores what you […]

Sectors where New Zealand startups are poised to win

New Zealand has historically been capital-starved, but recent investments have increased access to early-stage VC funding. Now, certain industries are emerging as areas where New Zealand can win.

Bellabeat’s Ivy bracelet tries to do it all — but it can only do some

Wellness startup Bellabeat, which has primarily marketed its wearable health trackers to women, recently introduced Ivy, a stylish, comfortable health tracker with a long-lasting battery life, poised as a prettier version of a Fitbit. But the accompanying subscription “Coach” software supporting the new bracelet feels like it’s still in beta, which is concerning for a product […]

Zeit secures $2M in seed funding for its stroke-detecting wearable

Zeit Medical, which makes an early warning system for strokes during sleep, has raised $2 million in a seed round just after leaving Y Combinator’s Summer 2021 cohort. The company’s work suggests the brain-monitoring headband could save lives by alerting people to possible strokes hours before they might otherwise be noticed, and the new funding […]