Vulcan Augmetics, a Vietnam-based robotic prosthetics firm, has on Monday announced that it has secured seed funding from Singapore-based venture capital firm Quest Ventures.
Vulcan Augmetics said in a statement that the firm envisions broadening its scope beyond prosthetics to encompass the full suite of wearable technologies, from diagnostic and health devices such as Fitbit to augmented reality (AR) and Virtual reality (VR) control systems.
“We are delighted to have received seed funding from Quest Ventures,
“Together with raiSE, they have demonstrated understanding and empathy for the problem we are solving and the vision to see how our technology can scale,” said Rafael Masters, Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Vulcan Augmetics.
According to him, they have been instrumental in securing early pilot programs.
“Making assistive technology accessible is a global challenge that will impact 2 billion people by 2030, and a huge opportunity for us to realise the potential of the disabled community,
“Vietnam has both the cost base for manufacturing, and the technical skills to deliver world beating machine learning software, and we are confident that from this starting base, Vulcan Augmetics will become the global expert in reading, harnessing and enhancing the human body,” he said.
Vulcan Augmetics is a developer of biometric sensors and customizable modular robotic prosthetics, operating through proprietary machine learning software.
According to the statement, there are an estimated 57 million amputees globally, with over 500,000 in Vietnam.
Thousands are added to the ranks each year, both in Vietnam and around the world, largely due to industrial accidents, chronic diseases, and the presence of unexploded ordnance and landmines that remain from wars.
It said Vulcan Augmetics’ mission is to provide affordable yet high-performance sensor technology that digitises the prosthetics process, making them accessible to underserved amputees in the developing world, enabling them to find employment, and regain independence.
“We look for deep tech yet highly scalable and investable companies that are solving meaningful problems,
“Vulcan Augmetics is a great example of addressing large and socially impactful issues with capital and technology,” said James Tan, Managing Partner at Quest Ventures.
“We are particularly concerned with ageing populations, and the quality of care that they will have,
“Affordable and high-performance robotic prosthetics will certainly improve independence, increase the quality of life, and decrease burden on caregivers and society-at-large,” he added.
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