Mark One develops connected beverage cups, including the Pryme cup (which tracks water and hydration) and the earlier-marketed but delayed Vessyl (intended to identify different liquids and monitor nutrition). The company’s Pryme product has suffered significant Bluetooth connectivity and reliability problems in the field. Mark One’s devices use Intel’s Curie hardware module to analyze sensor data and detect motions such as lifting a cup to drink. The company is developing a version-two Pryme that the team describes as more "industrial strength." Leadership recently changed: Alan Johnson joined as CEO less than a week before the article and said the additional funding will be used to fix functionality. Financially, Mark One previously closed a $3 million seed round and has early backers who collectively contributed $4 million; it has since raised an additional $4 million from Intel Capital and other investors. Mark One builds Vessyl, a smart cup that tracks liquid consumption by volume and at a molecular level to monitor overall nutrition. The device displays information via an LED strip and syncs to an iPhone app over Bluetooth. The company ran a June pre-order campaign that generated over $1 million in pre-orders and continues to offer an extended pre-order price of $99. Vessyl was designed by Yves Behar alongside co-founder Justin Lee, and the company hired Apple’s Hamid Mohammadinia as VP of Engineering in early July. The device is slated to ship and reach retail in 2015 with an MSRP of $199. The product is pitched to help users monitor calories and hydration as part of dieting and daily health tracking.

Total raised

$7M

Funding rounds

2

Latest round

Equity

Latest activity

Jun 2016