EmbroS - Developing Wearable Human Augmentation Devices for Differently Abled People
The company EmbroS (formerly LiveBraille) was founded by Abhinav S. Verma in October 2015 in Chandigarh. EmbroS is currently focused on developing products for the visually challenged. Incepted by a team of 10 with multi-disciplinary and multi-national talent; the company has two products-- LiveBraille Mini and PRO (PRO is expected to be launched publically in June). The LB Mini was launched at the ChinaBang Awards by TechCrunch on March 30th. The product has already boomed the target market with unmatched specs and thrilling feedback.
LiveBraille Mini
"Imagine a 32 gram ring that the visually challenged could wear on one of his fingers and tell you exactly how far an obstacle is, what is it, where is it going and how fast is it going?”
How does it work?
The product is basically a wearable with ring attached. The blind wears Mini in his finger and senses the obstacle nearby because of the haptic feedback caused when the obstacle comes in the product’s range which is 3 Meters. The precise feedback helps the visually impaired to identify
How far is the object as the intensity of the vibrations are directly proportional to the distance of the obstacle,
What kind of object it is - soft or hard.
How fast the object is moving and in what direction.
Live Braille Education
Live Braille Education™ that is product of EmbroS is extending education facilities to the Visually Challenged via the Mini (Incorporated in the product). The device has incorporated 8Gb flash storage and the capability to read our digitalized NCERTs and all generic audiobooks. The reading speed is also adjustable to user requirements.
The live Braille Mini with Education which has been recently launched costs INR 9999 closing $200.
With an excellent, tangible and proven technology in hand we consider the UX (User experience) as the core competency of our product. Live Braille sells to experience freedom! It’s not a product it’s an adorable and sticky experience.
Team BWDisrupt Interacts with Abhinav S. Verma, EmbroS Founder and spoke to him
How did the entrepreneurial bug bite you?
We found a vacuum in the PWD market and thought of building a revolutionary device using breakthrough technology to help the disabled. Currently we have a laser vision for the visually impaired and are developing world-class products for them.
Funding status and monetization model
We raised an undisclosed amount of funding in 2015 from few angel investors of Chandigarh and investors from New York. Two key people are Munish Jauhar and Vipul Gautam.
We are now public and open for investments. We look forward to raise $2 million to expand our business. Our business model as of now is B2B for Indian sales but we are working hard to enter B2C. We ship UX and this is our core competency.
The best and worst memories while setting up
The biggest challenges that every hardware startups face are:
1. Building the inventory and managing it.
2. Logistics
3. Product lifecycle management
Like all other hardware startups in India, the initial selling was quite difficult. We need to build in few products before we take them to the market. So inventory management was one of the challenge. Apart from it, we are operating in a niche market where the trust and UX are the prominent measures to get a sale. The logistics is another difficult task.
The best memories have been about the times when we were building Live Braille. From the 3D printed cases stuck with quick fix to high pressure fully automatic die casting we saw it all happen in like 2 months. A fantastic experience. Fortunately we don't really have times we could point out and say - 'hey that’s our worst memory' !
Market size and market opportunity
The disability market represents 1.3 billion people globally who face challenges across three general areas- dexterity, cognition and sensory issues. Equivalent in size to the population of China, the disability market represents an annual disposable market of $1.2 trillion -- and $544 billion in the US alone.
The near ones (friends and families) of the PWDs add another 2.2 billion potential customers and together they control $8 trillion in annual disposable income globally.
We capitalize on a booming market which is evolving at a CAGR of 6.9% to build the ‘Apple’ for assistive mobility. You would be shocked to know that there are 100 million PWDs in India, out of which almost 51% are visually impaired and this presents a scalable commercial opportunity of 4500 crore, across product categories for PWDs.
Traction details
LB Mini priced at $100 (INR 6999) has tapped 1000+ customers across 3 states in 3 months (Opened sales in January). Setting aside India we’ve acquired customers in 6 countries. We are still experimenting on sales channels and are working to hit $1Mn in global sales in the current quarter.
We are challenging the current paradigm where technology has been primarily for abled people. The device is up for sale here. The numbers are no wonder backed by thoroughly overwhelming response from the users in New Delhi, Chandigarh and Haryana.
Live Braille Mini shall, in the next 2 months be launched on famous E-stores to capitalize on the B2C market. EmbroS has also come up with Live Braille Freedom (tailor made EMIs) schemes and Live Braille Experience (Lease out) schemes to extend the experience to greater number of people.
What advice you want to give to the new entrants in this space?
We think for hardware companies product market fit precedes numbers as iteration is an expensive affair. At EmbroS we believe hardware is primarily about user experience. Once you get that right there is no looking back.
