Finalist | Ambiotex (Germany) - smart shirt for smart fitness

We talked to Thomas Claussen, managing director of ambiotex. This startup is a finalist of CODE_n15 and is offering a smart shirt with which they want to improve the market of fitness wearables.

More information: CODE_n CONNECT | Website | Facebook | Twitter

Where did your idea for the company come from?

Thomas Claussen (ambiotex): I’ve always been interested in new technologies like wearables. I was at a trade show and the German technology institute Fraunhofer IIS was presenting an smart shirt, which immediately caught my interest. With the strong partnership with match2blue GmbH and their technology background in mind, I imagined a leading edge technology which would revolutionize the wearable technology market.

For which kind of audience is your product or service intended and what problem is it solving?

ambiotex develops and produces a sensor shirt for health-conscious individuals who want to measure, analyze and share their vital data to improve personal performance. ambiotex solves a number of pressing issues that address several lifestyle areas:

• Performance optimization
• The desire to monitor oneself and share data
• Growing obesity
• The management of stress and the cost of increasing “burnout”
• The fact that cardiovascular disease is the #1 cause of death
• The insurance industry’s desire to incentivize healthy living

Our target groups are:

• The healthy: fit, lifestyle-oriented consumers
• The stressed: workers in dangerous or high pressure jobs

The risk-takers: the foundations are in place to enter the healthcare market. Aside from this, we also will also focus on high-risk professions like law enforcement, the army, and defense contractors.

Tell us a bit about the company’s founders like their professional or industry background and the origins of the founding-idea.

The ambiotex team consists of a group of highly skilled and specialized individuals who came together around one table to create a unique product.

• Dr. Andrea Claussen: Medical dvisor and co-founder, is a GP and the head of a private traditional Chinese medicine practice. She has a master‘s degree from INSEAD and works as a business coach. As our medical advisor, she is closely involved in the ongoing development of the product, drawing on her many years of experience in the fields of medicine, sport, coaching and stress management.
• Klaus Bscheid: Product manager and co-founder, is an IT graduate who spent several years working as a consulting manager for Apple and then established a series of startups in the software technology, e-commerce, mobile apps and mHealth sectors. He continues to thrive as an entrepreneur, now specializing in the development of wearables. He is currently bringing his extensive experience to bear as the product manager at ambiotex.

Before I became Managing Director and co-founder of ambiotex, I spent over 20 years as a partner with the consulting firm Accenture. This allowed me to gain a wealth of experience in the startup scene as a business angel, serial entrepreneur and adviser. I’m now responsible for the business development, product development and investor relations strategies.

We’ve seen many health and fitness devices over the last years. Most of them are operating in a closed ecosystem with limited functionality. What will future health/fitness devices look like? In what way are ambiotex smart shirts different?

Our vision is that in the future wearable technology will be with us all the time and everywhere – so they will be much more integrated into daily life. What gives ambiotex an advantage over its competitors? A couple of things:
1. The HRV algorithm software, for daily stress management and burn-out prevention
2. Detection of the thresholds between aerobic to anaerobic zones during training and sport competitions, to optimize workout effectiveness
3. Analysis and sharing of fitness data online through a personalized dashboard in a private cloud
4. Functions for the consumer to see early on what condition he is in to make more informed decisions regardint the intensity of training
5. Ultimate wearing comfort, function and fashion
6. Collaboration with known specialists and scientists in the field of sports medicine, sports science and stress research. Piloting and field studies in process; to be published in scientific journals.
7. 24-hour batteries and flash memory capacity for exercising without a mobile device
8. Connectivity with any BLE-enabled devices, e.g., Apple HealthKit
9. Open API and SDK available end Q2 2015

See ambiotex live on the CODE_n Stage on Wednesday, 18.03.2015.