SINGAPORE – ATHLEDE Pte Ltd, a sports lifestyle hardware tech company, has received a S$40,000 angel funding and Startup SG founder grant from TRi5 Ventures to develop training assistance wearables that do more than just tracking people’s exercise and fitness. TRi5 Ventures is an Accredited Mentor Partner of SPRING Singapore.
ATHLEDE is co-founded by Kwok Cheong WONG (KC), a graduate of SIM’s Platform E IntensE entrepreneurship programme and his programme mentor, Dr Bert Grobben. Dr Grobben is also CEO of Venture Builder Budding Innovations.
The idea to develop training assistance wearables was conceptualised by KC during his study stint at Platform E. Through a time of working together, both mentee and mentor found a similar interest in improving fitness which spurred KC to pursue his interest in developing the product.
Dr Grobben went beyond his mentorship and provided the young entrepreneur access to Budding Innovations’ in-house Industrial design and system engineering expertise. This gave KC the ability to develop ATHLEDE at an accelerated pace, from idea conceptualisation to an actual functional prototype that is already exciting its first trial users.
The fitness wearables market is fast growing - in 2016, watches capture 48.1% of market share and is forecasted to grow to 64% in 2021. ATHLEDE addresses the problems people currently face with fitness trackers: What do they do with the information? How do they improve from it?
Using his personal sports experience, KC wanted to develop a training assistance wearable that can deliver a new user experience for athletes and individuals with growing fitness lifestyles by helping them to optimise their training efficiency and achieve more significant results. The device makes use of an ergonomically positioned LED and Haptic feedback to provide users with a real-time response on their performance. This enables them to make training correction, and to push themselves further during the training without having to look directly at the device. Athletes can now be pushed to make their next breakthrough, National servicemen to achieve their next best 2.4km timing and individuals to reach their personal fitness goals.
The device plugs into a community-based, back-end service that will deliver features to users across multiple sports. The real-time training feedback will be measured against training plans, goals, and community-based interactions. ATHLEDE actively learns the user's fitness level, monitors progression, and curates a training plan to springboard them to the next level. It replicates the sense of social facilitation by enabling users to race with other runners of all levels, introducing a new level of challenge. ATHLEDE is connecting users through the community with other athletes, coaches, schools and sports associations, creating a unique eco-system that will enable a growing inter-connected lifestyle for all.
For KC, starting up ATHLEDE is a dream come true. He says, “I believe that everyone deserves some help to achieve their goals. We want to help athletes find their next breakthrough in their career and others who are looking for guidance in training to achieve what they used to think was impossible. Goal setting and training programmes offered by fitness trackers feels gimmicky as they provide virtually no feedback while in use. We go beyond the utility to create a compelling experience that connects emotionally with our users to help them realise their goals and aspirations. Wearables must be more than just a tracker. It has to influence a behavioural change to help people achieve their next goals. ”
The next milestone for the company is get more devices into the hands of athletes to try and experience ATHLEDE. Building from an optimised athlete experience, the company will grow its user community, and introduce value-adding services such as personalised coaching and training schedules, as well as provide a platform for an aspiring athletes to be discovered, whatever sport they are in.
ATHLEDE will be co-located with Budding Innovations, based out of Platform E’s co-working space at Namly Avenue.
Media Contact:
Dr Bert Grobben
Founder
Athlede Pte Ltd
Mobile: 91285636, Email: Bert@athlede.sg
About Athlede
Athlede is an active lifestyle team, dedicated to supporting individuals to have a better future via achieving their personal best in sports, fitness and overall wellbeing. Our primary focus is on transforming how people train on their own by developing new training-assistance products and connecting users to other athletes, schools and sports associations through the new eco system we’re building.
“It will be helpful to know your top speed… but when you are sprinting, you can’t really look at your watch. It will affect your form. A Device that can let know these information while running will be extremely useful.”
Victor, ex-sprinter for TeamSG
About Budding Innovations
Budding Innovations Pte. Ltd. (BI) is a Singapore headquartered Venture Builder and Solutions Provider. We work with our clients to transform problem statements into in-market executions. We provide technology and organizational leadership and integrate a wide industry range of capabilities in what we build. BI effectively takes technology to market and plays an active role in the end-to-end commercialization, through its bespoke strategic capability partner ecosystem, and wide market opportunity access. BI drives commercialization through eventually transferring appropriately matured programs to a corporate client, into a (self-)managed start-up, or driving a technology portfolio approach on behalf of our clients. Technology verticals centre around Advanced materials, CleanTech, Life Sciences and MedTech. BI also engages in Corporate Entrepreneurship & Open Innovation programs (Nebula™) and offers entrepreneurial internship programs to young entrepreneurs, grows their skill sets and contributes towards building a vibrant start-up scene in Singapore.
About Platform E
Platform E is an integrated entrepreneurship platform that takes a long-term view in supporting the entrepreneur in his/her start-up. By combining the knowledge-building of entrepreneurs, incubation of ideas and acceleration of go-to-market strategies, entrepreneurs are also supported by an ecosystem of a 25,000 sq ft co-working space, a highly-engaged community of peers, industry experts, coaches, mentors and investors. Platform E is powered by the Singapore Institute of Management (SIM) with its 50 years of experience in education and professional development, extensive alumni community and strong industry networks.
About TRi5 Ventures
TRi5 Ventures is an early-stage VC which invests in South-East Asian based startups. The team previously incubated 38 Singapore-based startups which raised S$8.1m in early-stage funding. TRi5 is an accredited mentor partner of SPRING Singapore.