Interview: The “stealth-like” wearable tech, with star power

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Sean Aylmer : Welcome to the Fear and Greed business interview, I’m Sean

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Sean Aylmer : Aylmer. Health technology is a fascinating area to dip into.

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Sean Aylmer : There are almost as many next big things as there

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Sean Aylmer : are disappointments. Getting products to market is a slow and

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Sean Aylmer : laborious process, but the rewards can literally be life- changing

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Sean Aylmer : for many people. This morning’s guest claims to take wearable

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Sean Aylmer : technology to the next level by using sensors at a

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Sean Aylmer : hair’s width in the skin, something that normal wearables can’t

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Sean Aylmer : do. Mark Kendall is founder and CEO of WearOptimo, and

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Sean Aylmer : joins me this morning. Mark, welcome to Fear and Greed.

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Mark Kendall: Hello, Sean.

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Sean Aylmer : So, I tried to describe what you’re doing, but please,

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Sean Aylmer : I think it’s better for the listeners that I leave

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Sean Aylmer : it to you. For a lay person like me, what

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Sean Aylmer : is WearOptimo doing?

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Mark Kendall: So, Sean, we’re generating the next generation of wearable sensors.

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Mark Kendall: So, when we think of wearables, we think typically of

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Mark Kendall: something like an Apple Watch, something like that. And they’re all

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Mark Kendall: fine, but they sit on the surface of the skin,

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Mark Kendall: and it turns out the skin’s an amazing organ, it

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Mark Kendall: does a great job at keeping the bad stuff out

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Mark Kendall: and the good stuff in. And what that means is

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Mark Kendall: it holds back signals, basically, it’s a barrier. It stops

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Mark Kendall: the Apple Watch reading things that really matter a lot.

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Mark Kendall: And so, what we’ve identified in WearOptimo is a way to

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Mark Kendall: gain access to those signals that matter. A good way

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Mark Kendall: of describing it is, imagine you’re in a room, and

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Mark Kendall: there’s a room next to you, and you’re trying to

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Mark Kendall: listen to that room. You could put your ear against

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Mark Kendall: the wall and you’ll hear some muffled sounds, but if

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Mark Kendall: you actually put a small hole in that wall, you

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Mark Kendall: can actually listen fully into that room. And so that’s

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Mark Kendall: what we do, and the way we do it is

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Mark Kendall: with really tiny micro electrodes. And these signals matter in

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Mark Kendall: so many different levels.

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Sean Aylmer : So, when we talk about a hair’s width into the

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Sean Aylmer : skin, what are we talking about?

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Mark Kendall: So, we’re talking about 50 microns, that literally, the width of

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Mark Kendall: a hair is about 50 microns or so. So, if

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Mark Kendall: you run your finger along our sensor, it just feels

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Mark Kendall: like a very small grade Velcro or sandpaper, that gives

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Mark Kendall: you a little bit of a feeling of that sensation.

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Sean Aylmer : And it actually penetrates the skin, is that the idea?

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Sean Aylmer : Minutely, but that’s the difference between it and an Apple Watch,

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Sean Aylmer : is it actually penetrates the skin.

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Mark Kendall: Yeah, just enough though. So, it’s stealth- like, if like.

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Mark Kendall: So, it comes down to challenging the definition of what

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Mark Kendall: penetration actually means. So, it literally is just a hair’s

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Mark Kendall: width in, so just going enough to reach these signals

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Mark Kendall: that matter. And a big part of what we’ve done is

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Mark Kendall: identified where you need to go as well, and the

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Mark Kendall: types of signals that you can open up within that

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Mark Kendall: location within the skin.

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Sean Aylmer : Okay. So, I’m very keen to hear about its uses,

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Sean Aylmer : but when you say where it can go, is that

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Sean Aylmer : where on the skin?

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Mark Kendall: Both. So, where within the skin, and then where on

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Mark Kendall: the skin. I’ll just give you one example. So take

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Mark Kendall: hydration. So continuous monitoring of hydration is a massive, massive

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Mark Kendall: area of unmet need. The current approaches for monitoring hydration,

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Mark Kendall: unbelievably rudimentary. We’re talking about, in the industrial setting, like

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Mark Kendall: a (inaudible) poster on the wall, at the toilets,

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Mark Kendall: just asking what color your pee is. So, that’s the

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Mark Kendall: level it currently is. But the problem’s massive. If you’re

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Mark Kendall: only 3% dehydrated, as one example, it can have a

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Mark Kendall: similar effect on your brain function as being over the

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Mark Kendall: blood alcohol limit. And the reason why this is a

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Mark Kendall: problem, of course, is as we dehydrate, our brain shrinks.

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Mark Kendall: So, we’ve identified that there’s an area called the viable

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Mark Kendall: epidermis, which is just as that hair’s width into the

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Mark Kendall: skin, and that’s the area in our body that is

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Mark Kendall: the most sensitive to hydration. So, all we need to

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Mark Kendall: do is sense that location and we get a really

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Mark Kendall: strong and clear signal that’s telling us directly what’s going

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Mark Kendall: on with our hydration within our body. But as opposed

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Mark Kendall: to a poster on the wall, which is bluntly really

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Mark Kendall: crude and too late, even when you get a signal,

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Mark Kendall: we’re getting this information on the go, with basically real

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Mark Kendall: time readouts throughout our wearable sensor.

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Sean Aylmer : Stay with me, Mark, we’ll be back in a minute.

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Sean Aylmer : My guest today is Mark Kendall, founder and CEO of WearOptimo. So, I’d

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Sean Aylmer : imagine just that example you are talking about, a hydration

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Sean Aylmer : sensor, that would obviously have medical applications, but also in

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Sean Aylmer : mines, on the sporting field, I’d imagine, a very broad range

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Sean Aylmer : of applications.

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Mark Kendall: That’s right. So, of course, we’re a business, and so

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Mark Kendall: we’re concentrating on areas that matter, and meeting that unmet

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Mark Kendall: need with viable commercial products. But you’ve touched on those

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Mark Kendall: markets. So, we have, in terms of large markets or volume-

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Mark Kendall: based markets, there’s the mining sector, energy resources, construction, but

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Mark Kendall: there’s also the military as well. So, out in the

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Mark Kendall: field, carrying all of the equipment, being out in hot

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Mark Kendall: zones, hot temperatures, et cetera. Beyond that, age care is

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Mark Kendall: really important as well. It turns out everything that’s bad

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Mark Kendall: about hydration when we’re in our prime just gets worse

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Mark Kendall: as we get older. And the reason why is that

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Mark Kendall: the sensors that are in our body that tell us

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Mark Kendall: that we need to drink deteriorate as we get older.

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Mark Kendall: And so, when you see someone who is elderly refusing

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Mark Kendall: to drink, it’s not because they can’t be bothered, it’s

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Mark Kendall: because their body’s not telling them to do it. And

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Mark Kendall: it’s a massive, massive problem. As one example, half of

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Mark Kendall: the things that go wrong for people in aged care

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Mark Kendall: are directly attributed to poorly managed hydration. So, the aged

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Mark Kendall: care market is important and growing. But also, there’s the

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Mark Kendall: hospital settings, accident emergencies, when the first thing that happens

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Mark Kendall: to you when you arrive at a hospital is they

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Mark Kendall: put a drip in and give you fluids. They have

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Mark Kendall: no way of knowing what that level needs to be.

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Mark Kendall: So, rolled up, all of those markets are north of

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Mark Kendall: 10 billion SAM per year.

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Sean Aylmer : Okay. So, this is the hydration sensor. It’s currently in

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Sean Aylmer : clinical trials, am I right? Where’s that up to?

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Mark Kendall: That’s right. Earlier this year we commenced a clinical testing,

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Mark Kendall: and that’s underway, and we’ve been generating really interesting and

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Mark Kendall: positive, compelling data. And so, our sensors generate the raw

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Mark Kendall: signals, the micro wearable sensors generate the data, and the

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Mark Kendall: type of thing we’re putting these participants through is a dehydration/

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Mark Kendall: rehydration protocol in an environmental chamber. So, imagine you’re in

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Mark Kendall: 40 degrees Celsius environment, at a given humidity, and you’re

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Mark Kendall: put through an exercise regime, and we gather that data,

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Mark Kendall: we’re getting millions of data points per person per day,

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Mark Kendall: and then we apply our data analytics AI on top

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Mark Kendall: of that, and pull out these insights into hydration, which

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Mark Kendall: we’re working towards generating what’s called a hydration index.

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Sean Aylmer : Okay. So, how far down the track are you? When are

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Sean Aylmer : you hoping that these trials, assuming they are successful, is

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Sean Aylmer : this another year or two before we get to that point?

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Mark Kendall: Yeah, so we’re in the thick of our trials now,

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Mark Kendall: and we’re working on that pathway towards products. So, that’s

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Mark Kendall: what’s underway right now. The process that we’re looking to

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Mark Kendall: be towards product could be potentially all going well the

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Mark Kendall: backend of 2025, or early ’26, for our first volume

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Mark Kendall: product sales. One thing I forgot to say, coming back

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Mark Kendall: to earlier question about the markets, I just wanted to

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Mark Kendall: add something else. And that is before we go to

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Mark Kendall: volume sales, like the military and/ or the mining sector,

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Mark Kendall: they’re big markets, right now we’re working with elite athletes,

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Mark Kendall: and they’re the most interested party, or the most motivated

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Mark Kendall: party, because they’re looking for that particular edge. So, one

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Mark Kendall: of our investors is Mark Weber, the Formula One champion,

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Mark Kendall: and he’s also a strategic partner into WearOptimo. That means

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Mark Kendall: we’re working actively with him in this space. And what’s

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Mark Kendall: in front of us is a work plan where, all

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Mark Kendall: going well, elite Motorsports drivers, like Formula One drivers, all

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Mark Kendall: going well, could be wearing our sensors soon. And that’s

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Mark Kendall: on the pathway towards volume sales, but highly impactful for

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Mark Kendall: our business as well.

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Sean Aylmer : Yeah, it’s a good point. Commercializing technology has always been

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Sean Aylmer : a challenge. A couple of points on that. I know

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Sean Aylmer : the ANU, the Australian National University’s Innovation Program had something to do with this

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Sean Aylmer : in the early days, having a high profile person like

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Sean Aylmer : Mark Weber around… Two questions. First, how important is it

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Sean Aylmer : to have someone like the ANU behind you? And the

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Sean Aylmer : second part is, when you are thinking about going to the

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Sean Aylmer : market, how important is it to have someone as high

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Sean Aylmer : profile as Mark Weber?

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Mark Kendall: The ANU is essential. I’m convinced WearOptimo would not have

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Mark Kendall: played out in the positive and accelerated way that it

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Mark Kendall: has without the tremendous backing of the ANU. They came

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Mark Kendall: in at the very beginning and backed us in a

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Mark Kendall: way that, it’s unprecedented. Several million dollars of backing. When

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Mark Kendall: we didn’t spin out from the Australian National University, I

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Mark Kendall: knew the vice chancellor of the ANU, but I’d never

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Mark Kendall: worked with him professionally before, but he was willing to

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Mark Kendall: back us, and the university was willing to give their

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Mark Kendall: full institutional support, for us to go hard on realizing

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Mark Kendall: this vision of wearables and precision medicine. And to do

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Mark Kendall: it in Brisbane as well, as opposed to do it

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Mark Kendall: in Canberra. So, they’re brilliant foundational investors and partners and

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Mark Kendall: continue to do so. We’ve commenced our grant with the

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Mark Kendall: Queensland government to set up a facility based here in

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Mark Kendall: Brisbane that can make the better part of 20 million

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Mark Kendall: micro wearables per year, the ANU is dollar matching that,

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Mark Kendall: so they’re still putting millions of dollars into WearOptimo as

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Mark Kendall: we speak.
So, ANU is essential. Now, beyond that, we

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Mark Kendall: are a business, so we have a commercial strategic partnership

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Mark Kendall: and investment from Aspen Medical, as an example. And I’ll

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Mark Kendall: come on to Mark Weber momentarily. But Aspen Medical are

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Mark Kendall: the world’s second- biggest provider of emergency services for the

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Mark Kendall: mining energy resources and military sectors globally. And so, they’ve

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Mark Kendall: come on, invested into WearOptimo, and we have a strategic

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Mark Kendall: distribution deal partnership with them to open up that first

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Mark Kendall: channel for our first volume markets. So, we’re gaining traction

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Mark Kendall: commercially in that area and we’re working with them closely

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Mark Kendall: on learning the particular market needs. So, that’s been great,

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Mark Kendall: but the Mark Weber piece on top of that, with

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Mark Kendall: the immediate elite sports settings, that’s been fantastic too.

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Sean Aylmer : Okay, so you’ve got plenty of support there. You are

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Sean Aylmer : raising capital at the moment, is that right?

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Mark Kendall: That’s right, we are raising capital to realize the clinical

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Mark Kendall: trials that we’ve just talked about. We have a highly

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Mark Kendall: focused company, creating and producing that pivotal first world only

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Mark Kendall: clinical data, here in Australia. And of course, to do

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Mark Kendall: that requires capital, and so we’re doing a capital raise

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Mark Kendall: as we speak.

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Sean Aylmer : Good luck with that Mark, and thank you for talking

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Sean Aylmer : to Fear and Greed.

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Mark Kendall: Thanks very much, Sean.

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Sean Aylmer : That was Mark Kendall, founder and CEO of WearOptimo. This

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Sean Aylmer : is the Fear and Greed business interview, join us every

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Sean Aylmer : morning for the full episode of Fear and Greed, Australia’s

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Sean Aylmer : best business podcast. I’m Sean Aylmer. Enjoy your day.