MākuSafe produces a patented wearable armband and a cloud SaaS platform, MākuSmart, that uses machine learning to surface real-time safety intelligence by location. The wearable captures environmental conditions, potentially hazardous motion (e.g., slips and trips) and voice-recorded near-miss incidents while explicitly not collecting personal or biometric data. The company launched its devices and platform in early 2020 after pilot programs in 2019 that demonstrated loss avoidance and promising ROI. In response to COVID-19, MākuSafe added contact tracing and worker density mapping features while maintaining privacy safeguards. The team has grown from two co-founders to nearly 20 full-time employees, adding five roles in June alone, and is preparing for its first international deployment in August. The recent funding will support hiring and expanded deployments across North America. MākuSafe, founded in 2016 by Gabriel Glynn and Mark Frederick and based in Des Moines, Iowa, develops wearable armband devices and a cloud system for gathering real-time environmental and human motion data. The platform uses machine learning to process millions of data points collected by the company's proprietary wearables to identify workplace risk. Customers gain operational and workforce insights from the data, enabling them to mitigate workplace risks and reduce worker compensation claims. The company closed a nearly $3.0 million seed funding round and has raised nearly $4.5 million in total funding to date. MākuSafe plans to use the capital to hire key personnel and to scale manufacturing of its proprietary technology. MākuSafe is a West Des Moines, Iowa–based insurtech that develops a wearable workplace safety armband and MākuSmart, a cloud platform using ML/AI to derive insights from sensor data. The device senses a variety of environmental conditions and transmits data to the cloud for analysis. In October 2017 the company raised a $1.25m convertible note round and said it will use the funds to expand development efforts. MākuSafe is in the final rounds of field beta testing and is tracking toward a go-to-market release in 2018. Earlier in 2017 EMC Insurance Company invested in the startup, and the company has identified a distribution model that leverages insurance companies to deliver the device and platform. The company is led by CEO Gabriel Glynn, CTO Mark Frederick, and CIO Kevin Krefting.

Total raised

$14M

Funding rounds

3

Latest round

Equity

Latest activity

Jul 2020