Evolution Devices, a Santa Clarita medical device company, has secured $241,070 in capital through a five-month-long crowdfunding campaign on the website Republic.com.
The campaign was backed by 486 investors and gathered funds to aid commercialization efforts for Evolution’s flagship product, the EvoWalk. The product is an AI-powered nerve stimulator that uses machine learning and motion tracking to target walking rehabilitation and fall prevention related to conditions such as multiple sclerosis, Parkinson’s and strokes. Evolution plans to pair the EvoWalk with a complementary digital therapy platform.
“We did expect to receive about how much we raised here,” Chief Executive Pier Mantovani wrote in an email to the Business Journal. “We tried to keep expectations low to plan accordingly, expecting about $200,000 and plan to raise more afterwards.”
The crowdfunding campaign began in late July and secured more than $152,000 in a rolling close by November. The company announced that same month that it would use funds to start its first official FDA Hardware safety test and that the first round of testing was scheduled for December.
By December, Evolution announced that the EvoWalk’s design was frozen and being prepared for manufacturing. The product’s printed circuit board area was reduced by 20 percent after the design was improved throughout 2021 via pilot and end-user feedback, according to a statement.
Pilot users and beta testers became integral to helping Evolution develop the EvoWalk. Users of the product logged more than more than 2.8 million steps and 560 miles last year.
Evolution has been acquiring funding since 2019 and through a mixture of grants in the years since, it has raised well over $1 million from agencies such as the National Science Foundation, Toyota Mobility Foundation and venture-backed initiative Alchemist Accelerator.
The crowdfunding campaign happened for multiple reasons, according to Mantovani.
“We spoke with a few other founders who went the crowdfunding route for early-stage capital and really enjoyed their experience,” Mantovani wrote. “We appreciated the Republic platform’s mission of letting anyone become an angel investor, and we felt we had a good company to crowdfund with, given our support network.”
Republic is an investment platform for investments in startups, real estate and crypto owned by OpenDeal Inc.
Mantovani wrote that outside of the funds raised, the campaign was an effective way to receive exposure, grow the company’s waitlist and meet more value-add investors from different backgrounds.
Mantovani said in an October 2021 interview with the Business Journal that Evolution believed it could receive FDA clearance for the EvoWalk around the second quarter of 2022. He added that a product launch may set up a Series A funding round late this year or early next.
Evolution does not expect to crowdfund in the future according to Mantovani, but the expectation could change with future fundraising rounds.
“The campaign went well and gives us confidence that we could raise through crowdfunding again,” Mantovani wrote. “The exposure from the campaign has helped us attract outside investors as well, which is our current focus to close our current round.”