MGMT Boston - W8, Q1 24 - Verve Motion // Happy Valentine's Day
Verve Motion // Happy Valentine's Day
Welcome to MGMT Boston where we try to help 785+ of you manage your awareness of top Boston startups and local up & coming operators putting in the work. Glad to have you here!
TLDR:
Verve Motion - building an industrial wearables robotics & software platform for hardworking humans
Thanks to Brent W. for the intro to Verve Motion
🔥 Upcoming Q1 Event: MGMT Boston B2B SaaS Breakfast - 2/27 @ 9am, co-hosted by Fidelity for Startups 🔥
Inviting Boston-area venture backed B2B SaaS operating leaders, founders & investors to join for a B2B SaaS breakfast on Tues, 2/27 to engage with the MGMT Boston Operators Club, co-hosted by Kristen Craft @ Fidelity for Startups
Other Resources:
MGMT Boston Operators Club - helping up & coming operators grow beyond their day to day
Underscore Core Coffee Shop - more than 100 leaders from the Boston startup ecosystem came to make connections, share learnings, and discuss the current landscape
Sean Smith, VP Product @ Denim - lessons from a product guy who spent time moonlighting in revenue
Dillon McDermott, Head of Sales @ Zowie - this one’s for the job hunters out there. A report from the front
186 Ventures 2024 Kickoff - assembled 60+ operators for some great discussion on 2024 trends
2024 Boston Tech Big Board - updated snapshot of 2024 companies to watch. The comprehensive funding list needs work. If anyone knows an easy way to capture this holistic view (ex-biotech), reach out!
The Endeca Effect: Overview / Markets / People / Products / Conclusion / Bonus - Steve Papa Alumni Learnings
Q1 Startups Highlighted: Merlin, BlueTrace, Osmo, Boswell, Tomorrow.io, Vizit, Centaur Labs
Q1 Operators Highlighted: Parker Lawrence / Herald, Aaron Whittemore / Humatics, Lauren Viscariello / Candex, Joe Kiernan / Perch, Micah Lanier / Jump, Craig Minoff / Kasa, Dean Walsh / TiE Boston
This week’s newsletter is sponsored by Tech Superpowers. They have operated in Boston as an IT provider on behalf of startups for the past 30 years for rapidly growing companies & premier clients like the Celtics, Accel, Matrix Partners, etc.
Verve Motion
Founders: Ignacio Galiana, Conor Walsh, Mike Rouleau, Nathalie Degenhardt
Founding: 2020
Mission: Power the human workplace through people-centric robotics
Employees: 50 & 90%+ Local
Workplace: Hybrid
Stage & Capital Raised: Series B & $40M+ raised
Investors: Safar Partners, Cybernetix Ventures, Construct Capital, Founder Collective, Pillar VC and OUP
Key Customers: Albertsons, UPS, Wegmans, Stop & Shop, Hannaford
Glassdoor Rating: 5.0
Valuation (estimated): $100M+ (assuming they sold ~10-20% of the company in the $20M Q4 ‘23 Series B fundraise)
^ this is a useless number. There is no tangible valuation until the business is sold or goes public. Don’t forget it!
Verve Motion is building an industrial wearables robotics & software platform for hardworking humans.
Founded out of Harvard’s Biodesign Lab in 2020 by Ignacio Galiana, Conor Walsh, Mike Rouleau, and Nathalie Degenhardt this team has been working on the research that ultimately became the commercial startup Verve Motion for over a decade. With initial funding for military use cases (via DARPA) and continued research grants from organizations like the National Institute of Health and National Science Foundation, research has been commercialized for an industrial use case to help make humans stronger & less fatigued.
When Verve Motion was spun out of Harvard in March of 2020 (you may have been a little distracted due to COVID), the company shipped its first products within 30 days while simultaneously closing its initial round of funding. It happened to be great timing. With overstretched supply chains, borders shutting, and a stretched labor force, Verve Motion’s mission to power the human workplace through people-centric robotics was primed for the moment.
More than 80% of warehouses lack any form of automation and only 5% have utilized sophisticated automation technology (src). Almost half plan to invest in technology of some sort in the coming years and automation technologies have a $22B+ global market today. But automation is uneven and capable humans are still needed at scale to deliver physical goods to consumers through complex supply chains.
Until now, there have really been only three different ways to solve the modernization of a warehouse operation. First, you could do nothing. And frankly that’s the status quo for a variety of reasons - cost, operational complexity, not knowing where to start, and on and on. Second, you could implement an expensive robotics system like an “ironman” type suit. But...those are expensive. They’re heavy. And they’re not always ready for primetime. The third is a passive suit that might be spring based with elastic brands. These can help reduce muscle strain but are also limited in their usefulness.
Verve Motion introduced a fourth solution – an active, soft exosuit. The company launched its SafeLift exosuit as a hybrid wearable technology that wears like a backpack with leg straps. It has a robotic motor that works in parallel with your back muscles via ribbon straps that remove up to 40% of the strain from your lower back when lifting. For situations like repetitive lifting or even picking up a dollar off the ground, you’re picking up your torso regardless. And Verve Motion has never lost a bakeoff to a passive suit competitor.
The SafeLift exosuit is designed for applications where there is a high degree of repetitive motion, with the mission to reduce injury rates and worker fatigue. Customers are large industrial, logistics & distribution hubs where repetitive lifting and constant motion is the job. These are workers doing hundreds of lifts per hour and thousands of lifts per day. Some statistics have workers lifting 50,000 lbs per day! Verve Motion studies have shown a 60-85% lower rate of back and hip injuries, driving higher productivity and user satisfaction for associates.
Verve Motion’s software platform, Verve Logic, now available as a standard feature with the SafeLift exosuit, adds cutting-edge safety analytics. The software delivers a sophisticated suite of actionable reports and insights, honing in on vital aspects such as ergonomic safety, trend analysis and utilization. This powerful software empowers industrial workers to uncover risks, identify trends, and even optimize facilities according to the unique demands of their environment.
During its initial commercialization startup phase, Ignacio Galiana led the sales efforts to attract the first few customers. He worked closely with users to work out the kinks and needs of a complex hardware & software system, tightening up the tech stack from apparel to electronics to firmware.
The exosuit itself can be programmed based on each worker’s preference. Some workers want less force, some want more. For maximum comfort, ease of movement and lightweight design, Verve Motion’s apparel team turned to a designer who designed clothes for Olympic athletes. Today, the growing customer base is principally based in grocery distribution, manufacturing and logistics.
The Verve Motion team has grown to 50 people and, in 2024, the company plans to roughly double the size of the team. The GTM playbook is clear - refining their motion to firm up the KPIs they can impact and drive partnerships with ownership teams who want to promote a culture of safety & employee retention.
Initial deployments typically involve 25-100 exosuits, with each exosuit subscription costing $4,500 per year. The package includes all the hardware, software & services, including deployment, warranty, and repair. The company has deployed more than 1,000 exosuits in the field across dozens of customers and is focused on growing out its customer pilots to the thousands and tens of thousands of additional employees across its existing customer footprint, satisfying and serving numerous stakeholders.
Since the company's inception in 2020, Verve Motion's soft exosuits have helped American workers lift more than 300 million pounds. Its wearable solutions have eliminated up to 85% of lower back and hip injuries at sites and increased worker productivity by 3-7%, all while creating a positive effect on worker retention and recruiting.
Over time, Verve Motion plans to expand its product solutions, addressing different muscle groups. You could imagine devices that help with shoulder strain as well as other applications around the manufacturing floor. From diverse industrial environments like an automotive plant to even sandblasting - they need help too!
Operators to Know:
Brian Boutwell, Head of Manufacturing and Supply Chain Operations
Christopher Buck, Head of Product
Jacob Byrne, Vice President of Customer Success
Jinwon Chung, Advanced Control Systems Lead
Andrew Clark, Director of Marketing
Michele Du, Technical Program Manager
Andrew Macauley, Product Manager
Ilya Mirman, Head of Marketing and Sales Operations
Brendan Quinlivan, Technical Product Manager
Beth Schaefer, Head of Customer Experience
Erin Scott, Order Management & Operations Director
My investigative powers continue to need work so apologies to the Verve Motion team I know I missed many up & coming operators internally
Key Roles To Be Hired:
If I were interviewing here are some questions I’d ask:
What is Verve Motion’s expansion strategy for 2024?
What are the biggest challenges as you scale the team toward 100 employees?
What is the long term vision for the company?
What are the most important roles you’ll be looking to add in 2024 // teams that need the most help?
We’re optimizing for readability here so to learn more about Verve Motion you’ll have to D.Y.O.R. I’m excited to watch this team help make more workplaces safer in this bold new era. All of commerce applauds your efforts. See you around town!
Happy Valentine’s Day
**We’ll be back with an operator next week. Appreciate your patience while I do some high wire balancing between all that’s happening at home and Boston startups**
On Valentine’s Day my wife & I welcomed our third child into the world. A happy, healthy, hiccupy baby girl (Mom’s doing great too!). In 2019 we might have been prepping for a nice meal out on the town to celebrate the holiday but…life comes at you fast!
Over the coming weeks I’ll be juggling my executive responsibilities at home while whipping up content in my spare time.
My favorite part about kids? They always try so hard. It’s inspiring. I’ll keep trying hard for you too!
Any feedback for me? One thing you liked? One thing you didn’t? Local startups or operators to highlight? Just reply to this e-mail!
See you next week!
-Matt
OMG - congrats on the new addition, Matt!