As a follow-up to its original Astron watch that used a low-power GPS chip to automatically set the time based on wherever in the world it was, Seiko’s new Stratosphere version features mostly aesthetic upgrades. But that doesn’t mean anyone with the original model won’t want to upgrade.
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Toronto-based startup Whirlscape has secured $500,000 in seed funding in a round that included Y Combinator, FundersClub, BDC Venture Capital and more, the company announced today. The startup created Minuum, a software keyboard that reduces occupied screen real estate to a single line, and that works with a range of devices, including wearables with small screens – or no screens at all.
The company launched its Minuum beta last year, and then made the software available to all on Google Play as a paid app later on. The 10-employee team has not only shown the value of its software on traditional hardware like smartphones, but also on devices breaking new ground in emerging categories, such as the Samsung Galaxy Gear, as seen in the video below.
Minuum made its debut on Indiegogo, where it managed to raise $87,354 over the course of its crowdfunding campaign, or almost nine times its original $10,000 goal. There’s a clear continued interest in alternative input methods for mobile devices, as evidenced by the success of others including Fleksy and SwiftKey. Growing interest in wearable tech, and the prospect of devices from major players like Google and Apple on the horizon have only served to fuel additional interest in alternative input methods for text and numbers.
“We’re working with a number of wearable device partners to try and really demonstrate the potential that Minuum has on their devices,” explained co-founder and CEO Will Walmsley in an interview. “I can’t get much more specific, but definitely there are a couple of smartwatches that we’re working with, and a couple of devices beyond smartwatches, too.”
Besides building wearable integrations, Whirlscape is also going to focus on growing its Android user base and engagement stats, leading up to the YC demo day in March, after which point Walmsley says they’ll probably turn their attention to bringing on new talent to add to the existing ten-person team.
There will be a big reward for the first company to make it easy to do text input on a tiny, wrist-borne screen if the interest in smartwatches from big OEMs continues, so Whirlscape is smart to be trying to solve that problem early on.
In October 2013, HTC teased plans to reverse its fortunes by introducing a wearable device, among other products. Speaking with Bloomberg in an interview, the company’s Chairman Cher Wang provided … Continue reading
The Lumo Lift is the second product from startup Lumo BodyTech, and the second to help users with their posture. The Lumo Back was the first, and it raised around $200,000 in 40 days on Kickstarter. This time, Lumo opted to do the crowdfunding themselves, and the trajectory of the latest device has been quite different: Lumo Lift is at over $900,000 raised as of this writing, just under a month into the pre-order period.
That adds up to nearly 13,000 pre-orders, and totals about $32,000 per day raised thus far. The original Lumo Back campaign managed around $5,000 per day, or roughly one-sixth as much. Interest isn’t really waning the way it has a tendency to do with these kinds of campaigns, either – between Jan. 28 and Feb. 3, there were 3,149 pre-orders in total, which was close to on par with the very first week after a couple of weeks of slower, but still strong interest, as you can see from the chart below.
“It’s going well for a couple reasons,” explained Lumo founder and CEO Monisha Perkash in an interview. “Lumo Lift really differs from other wearable tech because it’s customizable to different fashion tastes. It’s really wearable tech that’s more than just tech: It’s fashionable tech. Also […] it focuses on bringing out the more confident, more attractive, the healthier you and that requires both staying active as well as good posture and we’re the only solution in the market that can do both.”
Interest in the campaign has produced some interesting demographic insight, too. Lumo has found that the majority of pre-order interest is from male customers, who are responsible for just over 67 percent of all orders. The U.S. is the big market for the Lift, unsurprisingly, with 86.7 percent of all orders, while 92.5 percent of sales come from the combined English-speaking countries of the U.S., U.K., Australia and Canada. White is the most popular color choice with 54 percent of purchases, while 26 percent preferred black and silver trailed both with just 20 percent.
The difference between the initial campaign and this one is staggering – Lumo Lift will almost certainly exceed $1 million in pre-orders, likely before the week is out, which is five times what the startup accomplished on Kickstarter for the Lumo Back. I asked Perkash about how the two experiences compare.
“There are pros and cons of going in either direction [Kickstarter vs. self funding],” she explained. “What we’ve found is that because your customers interact with you on your website, you end up having a closer relationship with your customers. You can engage them more without having a third party between you, and you can also develop your own brand and messaging, […] and make it consistent with what you want to communicate.”
Perkash says Lumo is still happy with having used Kickstarter in the beginning, since it helped them reach a wider audience with a brand that people didn’t really know to begin with. Also, she says that going alone a year and a half ago when they first started out, crowdfunding was still a relatively new concept, so there wouldn’t really be an opportunity to build a big following using your own platform vs. partnering with someone like Kickstarter.
Despite massively exceeding their initial expectations, Perkash says that she doesn’t anticipate any hiccups with initial production, since they’re confident in the manufacturing system and relationships they built with the original Lumo Back. There are only three more days left to get the Lumo Lift at its discounted price of $69 before it goes back to $99, so we’ll likely have a better idea of what kind of initial shipment volumes they’ll be facing once that price change starts to affect pre-order demand.
News about Apple’s anticipated iWatch wearable has ramped up in recent time, with word surfacing last month that a team of experts had been tapped by Apple as a possible … Continue reading
As promised, Pebble rolled out an app store for its iPhone users earlier today, and Android users were left asking for info about when their own would surface. Fortunately, the … Continue reading
With its new Sond line of watches, Void has come up with a clever alternative to traditional watch bands that usually has two straps united by a clasp on the underside of your wrist. By integrating the locking mechanism into the watch’s body, a single nylon band is all that’s needed here.
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NTT DoCoMo is one of the largest wireless carriers in Japan. The company has announced that it has teamed up with a clothing maker named Toray to develop a new … Continue reading
Despite frantically trying to keep a sinking ship afloat, Nintendo continues to refuse branching out into the mobile space. Instead, the company will be dipping its toes in an area … Continue reading
This week the ASUS chairman Jonney Shih spoke up at the company’s year-end party, making it known that he’s got full confidence in the brand’s next-generation wearable device. This wearable … Continue reading
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