Epicore Biosystems, a digital health solutions company developing advanced sweat-sensing wearables to provide real-time personalized hydration insights for performance and safety, today announced that it has received investment from Pegasus Tech Ventures, a global venture capital firm based in Silicon Valley, and Denka Company Limited, a Japan-based multinational technology and materials company. The new investment is the first of a larger series and will be used to support the scale and distribution of Epicore’s wearable solutions within Japan and in the broader Asia market.
Asia continues to experience unprecedented heat waves, breaking all-time temperature records throughout the continent. Despite the introduction of wearable technologies and the dangerous rise in extreme heat waves, digital solutions that monitor and manage hydration have yet to reach broad-scale adoption in Asia. As a result, many enterprises and athletes alike have had to rely on qualitative tracking of weather conditions to determine the hydration needs of industrial workers. Using the new investment from Pegasus and Denka, Epicore will improve access to personalized hydration insights by scaling its Connected Hydration solution across Japan and Asia. Connected Hydration is a breakthrough biosensor and enterprise cloud that measures sweat loss, sodium loss, skin temperature and movement to provide actionable rehydration strategies in real-time.
“Exposure to heat has proven to be quite challenging to pin down, as every individual has different hydration needs that could vary depending on diet, sleep, stress and physical exertion,” said Dr. Roozbeh Ghaffari, CEO and co-founder of Epicore Biosystems. “Alongside Denka and Pegasus, we are bringing our scientifically validated biowearable products to Asia to tackle the dehydration and extreme heat crisis with a single, unified biosensor and enterprise cloud for the first time.”
This strategic investment comes on the heels of recent deployments by Epicore and Denka across several industrial sectors in Japan. Denka trialed the solution with multiple Japanese corporations, including chemical factories, construction, engineering services, oil and gas, warehouses and manufacturing plants, and found that extreme heat conditions across both indoor (factory work) and outdoor (construction and oil gas field work) caused significant sweat losses and a broad range of electrolyte losses. These sweat loss results indicate that heat exposure and dehydration risks are not limited to outdoor field workers. In fact, indoor workers experienced significant alerts/alarms and were at times working nearby radiating heat sources, thus representing even higher risk.
“Health risks and injuries associated with extreme heat are pervasive in Japan and across the broader Asia population,” said Nobuyuki Yoshino, managing executive officer at Denka. “Epicore’s wearable technology is positioned to improve our understanding of hydration and health needs for people at home and in industrial work settings. We are excited to collaborate with Epicore to help scale Connected Hydration and its portfolio of innovations and products.”
Epicore’s Connected Hydration consists of a flexible wearable patch, a mobile application and a cloud engine. Unlike most wearables in the market, Connected Hydration has an extended battery life that works over 1,000 hours and never requires charging. Epicore Biosystems offers a complimentary battery swap service, creating an eco-friendly and seamless user experience.
Connected Hydration’s advanced features include:
- Multiple biosensors for real-time sweat and electrolyte loss, skin temperature, and motion tracking
- Real-time dehydration alerts and alarms via vibration cues
- Real-time hydration feedback and fluid/electrolyte intake tracking via the mobile app
- Data dashboard for tracking daily and longitudinal changes across all biometrics
- Enterprise cloud engine with predictive analytics for dehydration events
The record-setting heat waves of 2023 have led to increasing global demand for hydration management solutions from enterprise sports and industrial companies, particularly in Asia, Australia and the Middle East regions. Over the past few years, Epicore has lined up several key partners in the United States and abroad, including notable companies such as Chevron, PepsiCo, Gatorade, 3M, the U.S. Army and more. The company will launch the patented Connected Hydration patch, mobile application and cloud engine for commercial use in early 2024.
To learn more about the company and its solutions, visit https://www.epicorebiosystems.com/.
About Epicore Biosystems
Founded in 2017, Epicore Biosystems is a digital health company developing advanced sweat-sensing wearables that provide real-time personalized health insights for hydration, stress and wellness. Their clinically validated biowearable products and cloud analytics are deployed globally and licensed by leading Fortune 500 companies, the Department of Defense and the National Institute of Health. To learn more, visit https://www.epicorebiosystems.com/.
About Denka Company Limited
Denka is a chemical company that continues to contribute to the advancement of society by developing and providing unique technologies and products for more than 100 years since its establishment in 1915. In our management plan “Mission 2030” covering the 8-year period from 2023 to 2030, we identified three domains “ICT & Energy”, “Healthcare”, “Sustainable Living” as focus areas. Denka continues to contribute to people’s lives and the society through the chemistry we can be proud of to the world for the purpose of “Make the world a better place as specialists in chemistry.” To learn more, visit https://www.denka.co.jp/eng/.
About Pegasus Tech Ventures
Pegasus Tech Ventures is a global venture capital firm based in Silicon Valley, offering intellectual and financial capital to exceptional emerging technology companies around the world. In addition to a more traditional investment approach, Pegasus offers a unique Venture Capital-as-a-Service (VCaaS) model for large, global corporations that wish to partner with cutting-edge technology startups. To learn more, visit https://www.pegasustechventures.com.
