UnaliWear, based in Austin, Texas and led by CEO Jean Anne Booth, develops the Kanega watch, a wearable Personal Emergency Response System (PERS) that delivers 24×7 support without requiring a smartphone. The Kanega watch uses cellular, Wi‑Fi, GPS, BLE (for hearing aids and telemedicine devices), an accelerometer for automatic fall detection, and continuous speech for interaction rather than buttons. Its features target seniors as well as people with disabilities and chronic diseases such as Parkinson’s, multiple sclerosis and ALS. The company broadened its outlook after a successful Kickstarter campaign in early 2015. UnaliWear planned U.S. availability of the watch in the second half of 2016. The company closed a seed financing to prepare for beta testing of the product. UnaliWear builds the Kanega watch, a classically styled, voice-operated smartwatch for seniors that incorporates built-in cellular, Wi‑Fi, GPS, an accelerometer for fall detection, continuous speech and data-driven AI that learns the wearer’s lifestyle. The watch does not require a smartphone and uses voice recognition and voice commands to place emergency calls and help with medication monitoring. The company repositioned from LifeAssist to UnaliWear (Unalii means “friend”; Kanega means “speak”) and has iterated through multiple prototypes, recently completing a fifth unit. Kanega is in beta testing (friends and family trials) with an expected market launch in 2016. Pricing announced in the article is $299 for the device plus an activation fee and $35–$85 monthly monitoring fees. The product faces competitors such as Lively, Evermind and BeClose in a U.S. monitoring-device market estimated at $1.5 billion annually.

Total raised

$3M

Funding rounds

2

Latest round

Seed

Latest activity

Feb 2016