KinoTek raises $600K in pre-seed round

KinoTek Inc, a digital health technology company using AI and computer vision to improve movement analysis, has raised $600,000 in its first round of funding.

The company will use the funds to help it launch its first product, Move.ly, to the public later this year.

The investment comes from leAD Sports and Health Tech Partners, Tavistock Group, Maine Technology Institute and several independent angel investors. LeAD and Tavistock are the groups that managed the accelerator in Florida in which KinoTek recently participated.

“It is an exciting and important time in KinoTek’s evolution, and it is more important than ever to surround ourselves with strategic investors such as leAD, Tavistock, and MTI,” said Justin Hafner, the company’s co-founder and CEO. “Every dollar of this round is what we consider ‘smart money.’ Each investor adds immense value to our company and allows us to build a strong foundation for future growth.”

KinoTek, founded in 2018 by Hafner and David Holomakoff, is developing software that uses computer vision technology to gather motion capture data that it then uses to create computer visualizations of the human body, including measurements of things like joint range of motion and asymmetry.

While this is the first round of equity financing for the company, it has won some monetary awards and received some non-dilutive grant funding over the years, much of it from the Maine Technology Institute.

“MTI has been pleased to play a small role in KinoTek’s journey, from awarding them the $25,000 prize for winning the inaugural season of Greenlight Maine’s College Series, to providing them small grants for customer discovery and beta testing work, to participating in their recent pre-seed financing round,” MTI President Brian Whitney said in a statement. “The company and the product have made great strides and we look forward to helping them continue to grow and succeed as another innovative company in the MTI portfolio.”

A necessary pivot

The company, which spun out of Hafner’s research in kinesiology while a student at the University of Maine, where Holomakoff was a research scientist, originally was targeting professional athletes and sports teams with its software, but it pivoted after the pandemic put a damper on any professional sports activity.

The company quickly refocused its energy on the digital health space, specifically targeting physical therapists, chiropractors, occupational therapists, athletic trainers, and any other licensed professional who uses movement as a way to assess, treat, or prescribe rehabilitation—a customer segment Hafner calls “movement clinicians.”

“What drew us to KinoTek was their well-rounded team and cutting-edge technology”, said Christoph Sonnen, co-founder and CEO of leAD Sports & Health Tech Partners. “Their goal of empowering professionals and patients to better understand human movement has the potential to truly disrupt this industry. Now it’s all about executing and bringing their vision to life.”

The announcement of the pre-seed investment comes on the heels of several other positive headlines for the company, including completion of a partnership it inked with Microsoft in 2020, creation of its inaugural board of directors, its selection into the leAD Lake Nona Sports & Health Tech Academy, and its acceptance into the Roux Institute’s Startup Residency Program.