US-based biotech company Epicore Biosystems has secured $26m in Series B funding led by the Steele Foundation for Hope aiming to drive the global adoption of its “personalised” hydration and cloud analytics platform.
The funds also enable the company to expand into new biomarker targets related to women's health, kidney health, environmental toxin exposures, and malnutrition.
Epicore aims to address the global challenges posed by excessive heat exposure, especially for high-risk groups such as children, industrial workers, and expecting mothers.
Its sweat-sensing solutions claim to offer real-time insights into an individual's hydration, stress, overall wellness, and nutrition.
Epicore's technology, which non-invasively measures sweat composition and fluid losses, works in conjunction with traditional digital biomarkers.
The company's sweat-sensing wearables include the Gx Sweat Patch, which is commercialised in collaboration with PepsiCo and Gatorade.
The Gx Sweat Patch caters to athletes across various sports, assisting them in understanding their hydration needs to maintain peak performance.
Meanwhile, the Discovery Patch Sweat Collection System, a Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Class I device, offers a “comfortable” method for sweat capture and analysis in clinical trials.
For industrial workers, the Connected Hydration wearable and cloud platform offers “personalised” feedback and interventions to address the effects of dehydration and heat exposure.
Worn on the arm, the wearable educates workers on proactive hydration based on their specific sweat and electrolyte loss, skin temperature, and motion data.
Since its Series A funding completion more than three years ago, the company expanded its customer base by 24 times.
Epicore Biosystems CEO and co-founder Dr Roozbeh Ghaffari said: "Epicore has developed a new class of biochemical sensing wearables that enable the sports, fitness, and connected worker sectors to unlock key health and wellness insights.
"The Series B investment will help expand our global reach and accelerate the validation of new biomarkers needed to shape the future of personalised hydration and wellness strategies for all."
