Owlet, the teenie tiny bootie that goes on babies and informs you if they’ve stopped breathing, has raised a $7 million A round, adding some solid numbers to their already impressive $1.85 million seed. The company, led by Jordan Monroe, Kurt Workman, and Zack Bomsta, aims to use the cash to help prepare for its public launch.
The round is led by Formation 8 along with Carpe Diem VC as well as previous investors. Formation 8 invested as part of their new hardware fund.
“Being a baby product, safety and dependability have been top priority. We have been testing extensively with our hardware on live babies since last August,” said Monroe. “We just passed the 1 billion heartbeats recorded this month. We are beginning accuracy studies on the product and have units at Seattle Children’s hospital with IRB approval. We are also kicking off studies with many universities and hospitals to understand more about infant health.
“Fundamentally we know that parents have enough to worry about, we don’t want to be another app to check or worry about. We want to just put the sock on at night and forget we are even here, knowing that the Base Station will alert you if there is a problem. So we are one less thing to worry about.”
The product, called the Owlet Smart Sock, fits on your wee one’s foot and keeps tabs on his or her heartbeat via pulse oximetry. They have been shipping early testing units and they took part in our Hardware Battlefield in Las Vegas. It will ship later this year.