Atlanta startup Sarvint Technologies has raised $6 million to develop a “smart shirt” — a sensor-laden garment that can help athletes train and monitor patients recovering from surgery. – posted in Atlanta Business Chronicle – 8/17/2015
Sarvint’s smart shirt uses specialty fibers to carry signals that measure vital signs such as heart rate, skin conductivity, muscle exertion and blood pressure, providing “pervasive intelligence,” said Sundaresan Jayaraman, Sarvint co-founder and Georgia Tech researcher
Indeed. The name Sarvint is derived from “sarvam,” the Sanskrit word for “pervasive.”
“We are looking at this as being the central way of harnessing any and all the information from the human body,” he said. “The garment is a wearable motherboard. The fabric is the computer.”
Sarvint raised the $6 million from Atlanta’s CTW Venture Partners, Cupertino, Calif.-based Monta Vista Capital, and Maxim Ventures, the venture arm of San Jose, Calif.-based Maxim Integrated Products (NASDAQ:MXIM), a $2.5 billion semiconductor manufacturer.
The capital will be used to commercialize the product and prepare for manufacturing. Sarvint is co-founded by Dr. Jay Yadav, an Atlanta cardiologist who co-founded heart sensor company CardioMEMS, which St. Jude Medical acquired for more than $500 million.
Sarvint co-founder and CEO Palaniswamy Rajan likens the shirt’s monitoring technology to seismology equipment that tracks the unseen tremors that typically precede an earthquake.
“We should have enough insights to see how the heart performs, that (the smart garment technology) has the potential to prevent anyone from passing away from a heart attack,” said Rajan, who is also CTW’s managing partner. “The shirt can detect anomalies in the heart rate and serve as an early warning system.”
Dozens of sensors are woven or knitted into the base textile material that can be made of cotton, nylon, or even fire-retardant material depending on the application.
Health data from the shirt is transmitted to a credit-sized controller. The controller gathers data from the sensors in the shirt and transmits the information to a smartphone, or web app. The shirt is expected to last for at least a year and will be washable.
