Muse Wearables rides tech wave with hybrid watches, virus-killing clothes

Bootstrapped with Rs 2 lakh in 2016, the Bengaluru-based firm has offices in Chennai, Singapore and London, and caters to 70 countries through direct-to-consumer model

In the time of Covid-19, you could catch the dreaded virus through your clothes or simply brushing against tables, chairs, doors and a plethora of other furniture items out there. But what if some of these items that you use daily were to be made in such a way as to quickly destroy all kinds of harmful viruses and bacteria, including the new Coronavirus?

Muse Wearables, a consumer technology start-up incubated at IIT Madras Incubation Cell, which designs, develops and sells wearable electronics, and consumer mobile internet services, is working on pathogen-destroying clothes. The technology on which the products will be based emerged from the research of one of its founders. Interestingly, the company's main products at present are a hybrid smartwatch and a payment platform!

“My research project was on nano coating of metals. So I applied the same principles on textiles and found that wash cycles and adhesion strength had been established. We are trying to test the technology directly on coronavirus next week. But it has been established that it works on other bacteria and viruses. We need to publish the results on coronavirus,” says K L N Sai Prasanth, CEO and Co-Founder, Conzumex Industries, which operates the brand Muse Wearables.

About 60 companies in the textiles, pharma, healthcare and furniture sectors, and some public sector firms have already approached the start-up to explore the possibility of working together on the technology.

It has also announced developing of a wrist-based tracker with skin temperature, heart rate and SpO2 (Blood Oxygen saturation) sensing. The device can continuously track these body vitals remotely that will help in early diagnosis of Covid-19 symptoms.

The Muse story

Muse Wearables was founded by IIT Madras graduates K L N Sai Prasanth (CEO and Co-Founder), Ajay Yathindra (Chief Product Officer and Co-Founder) and NIT Warangal graduate K Prathyusha (COO and Co-Founder). George Francis (CTO) is also part of the management team now.

The idea to start Muse Wearables came up at IIT Madras when the three co-founders met for the first time at the Engineering Design Department. Realising that there are no consumer-facing electronics brands in India, they wanted to challenge the status quo and registered the company in 2012 while in their final and Pre-Final years in college. After graduating, the founders took a year's time to work elsewhere and travel the world, before meeting again at the end of 2015 to fulfill their desire to build the start-up. Actual operations of the company started in early 2016 when they all met again to build the firm and get it incubated at IIT Madras Incubation Cell.

In 2016, bootstrapped with Rs 2 lakh, they launched a small charging technology in the market. Within 30 days of the launch 17,000 units were sold across 102 countries and the firm made Rs 1.5 crore revenue. In eight months, they gained experience in supply chain, manufacturing, sales and marketing and received a US patent for the technology, which it eventually licensed to another company in order to focus and build the existing Muse brand.

In 2017, it had identified a gap in the wearables space and decided to create a category creating product and launch it in the market. In the next three years the company developed a hybrid smartwatch technology from scratch and it took about 17 iterations to perfect the product, build the supply chain and manufacturing for the products.

Having gone through many challenges, from raising funds to getting the products out by fully manufacturing them in India, Muse today sells its products in 70 countries and recently became operationally profitable. It is currently in discussions with a few investors to raise Series-A funding to scale and sell its products across the globe.

It has launched a payments hybrid smartwatch along with their Muse Health and Muse Pay platforms in 2018 and entered the market by 2019-end. The products are currently sold through its own website and its Tap-&-Go Payments service is live in 28 European countries, said Prathyusha, COO and co-founder of the company.

The Bengaluru-based company has offices in Chennai, Singapore and London. It currently caters to approximately 70 countries through direct to consumer model.

It has raised a total of Rs 6.85 crore from Keiretsu Forum, Lead Angels and other HNIs like S S Rajamouli (Director of Bahubali Movie) between 2017 and 2019.

While creating solutions to the Covid-19 related problems, Muse Wearables has filed two patents and is in the process to file another seven patents in the next 1-2 months. Along with Covid-19 innovations, it is planning to add new product verticals in the space of activated textiles and Consumer HealthTech.

Future

The company is planning to build a digital ID for every Individual through wearables and online services, wherein the data will be owned by individuals.

All the Muse Products are manufactured in India through contract manufacturing and it was in the process of increasing production when Covid-19 hit the markets. The aim is to grow as a new technology brand focusing to build a strong consumer brand in the next one or two years. In the next five years, Muse Wearables wants to be a leading innovative technology company in India and wants to build a global consumer brand with cutting edge innovations across Consumer electronics, Consumer HealthTech, Digital ID and Cashless Payments.