GripAble raises $11m in Series A funding

Last week GripAble announced $11m in Series A funding that will help to expand its data-driven neuro and musculoskeletal rehab services, with a particular focus on growing markets in Europe and the US. The round was led by IP Group and an equal investment from Parkwalk Advisors. This successful fundraising follows a recent significant partnership with Medline, a leading medical equipment distributor.

GripAble is a London-based healthtech startup that delivers rehabilitation programs to people with neurological and musculoskeletal conditions. The company was founded by Paul Rinne and Mike Mace in 2017 with a mission to make outcome-driven care scalable and accessible to all, delivering high volumes of efficient and personalised therapy from hospital to home.

GripAble has been developing its rehabilitation solution over the last eight years and consulted thousands of occupational and physical therapists, patients across various clinical conditions and academic institutions. The start-up launched its first hand-held sensor and mobile app in 2020. Its bespoke hand-held sensors, gamified app software, and hybrid tele-therapy services will allow more patients to access improved physical and cognitive rehab for longer whilst reducing costs.

Over 8,000 individuals have already used the platform and GripAble established itself in the UK as a leading technology in the remote-rehab space with 100,000 activity sessions and 27 million movement repetitions across the users. The initial evidence highlighted an eight-fold increase in patient training through GripAble platform compared to standard care which has attracted partnerships with multinational pharmaceutical companies and distributors.

Dr Paul Rinne, GripAble Co-founder and CEO, explains:

“Patients with physical and cognitive impairments require guided therapy to improve their quality of life. Simply put, the more rehab they do and the more they adhere to professional guidance, the greater their chances of having better outcomes, with a wealth of evidence backing this up,”

“However, due to resource costs and poor logistics, current health systems cannot deliver the amount of therapy needed, with significant backlogs, and few patients receiving anywhere near what they require to get better. This is a common problem faced by hundreds of millions of patients around the world, with inefficient care pathways not only costing health systems hundreds of billions of dollars every year, but costing people a chance to live their lives to their full potential.”

He added: “The evidence is clear. The new funding will accelerate GripAble’s journey to delivering end-to-end patient care and connecting millions to their own personal home-based clinic. We welcome IP Group and Parkwalk, who have a wealth of insight and experience that will support us in growing our industry-leading platform in the US market and enable us to expand our clinical and commercial evidence base.”

Dr Sam Williams, Managing Partner of Life Sciences at IP Group plc, commented: “IP Group has had great success in the digital therapy market with our investment in Hinge Health and we see similar potential in GripAble. We’re therefore delighted to be joining the company’s journey as it develops into a fully-fledged commercial organisation.”

Martin Glen, Investment Director at Parkwalk Advisors, said: “Parkwalk is excited to be backing this breakthrough digital rehabilitation technology as it grows and enters new markets. In particular, we are hopeful that GripAble can reproduce its strong initial success in the UK in the significantly larger US market. This would enable many more patients to access the sustained level of rehabilitation therapy that they require for a positive outcome post-injury. GripAble was an early investment in the Parkwalk-managed Imperial College Innovation Fund and is the second such company to receive further investment from Parkwalk. It is a reflection of the strength of Imperial College’s research in STEM subjects that this breakthrough technology emerged from its labs.”