{"id":26425,"date":"2015-02-17T16:57:52","date_gmt":"2015-02-17T21:57:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sciencebusiness.technewslit.com\/?p=26425"},"modified":"2016-06-11T12:36:51","modified_gmt":"2016-06-11T16:36:51","slug":"redesigned-crutch-developer-gains-450k-in-early-funds","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/technewslit.com\/sciencebusiness\/?p=26425","title":{"rendered":"Redesigned Crutch Developer Gains $450K in Early Funds"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Partha<\/a>
Partha Unnava and the Better Walk crutch with President Obama at the White House Maker Faire in June 2014 (Better Walk Inc. and whitehouse.gov)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

17 February 2015. A company developing a more comfortable alternative to standard underarm or forearm crutches, secured $450,000 in its first venture funding round. Financing for Better Walk Inc.<\/a>, a spin-off from\u00a0Georgia Institute of Technology and based in Atlanta, is led by MB Venture Partners<\/a>, a Memphis-based venture capital firm.<\/p>\n

A broken ankle playing basketball provided the inspiration for Partha Unnava<\/a> to invent a more comfortable crutch. After suffering six weeks of pain and fatigue from walking on traditional crutches, Unnava used his biomedical engineering education to design an alternative. Better Walk crutches<\/a> have plates supporting the torso and that users can lean on, putting less pressure on armpits or forearms, especially when in a resting position.<\/p>\n

Unnava started Better Walk in 2013, while still a biomedical engineering student at Georgia Tech, with fellow engineering students Frankie Swindell and Andrew Varghese. After completing his studies last Spring, Unnava became the company’s full-time CEO. He raised $150,000 in seed funding, and joined the Zero To 510<\/a> medical device accelerator program in Memphis. The company since relocated to Atlanta.<\/p>\n

Better Walk adapted modern design and management techniques to get the new crutch into development and production. The company uses lean start-up<\/a> principles to quickly build and evaluate prototypes, combining product development and market testing to accelerate a product to market with less waste. Better Walk also made its early models with 3-D printing that enabled the company to exhibit at trade shows and get feedback from customer prospects at a fraction of the cost of earlier techniques.<\/p>\n

The company’s founders were named Georgia Tech’s biomedical engineering outstanding entrepreneurs in 2014. Unnava also took part in the White House Maker Faire<\/a> in June 2014, and was named to this year’s list of Forbes Magazine’s “30 Under 30.”<\/a><\/p>\n

“The funding will help us to continue down the path of manufacturing and distributing the Better Walk crutch to patients who need it,” says Unnava in a company statement. The company plans to start limited production of the new crutch this spring, largely for hospitals, and scale-up up production from there.<\/p>\n

Read more:<\/p>\n