Parkinson’s Disease (PD) is a progressive disorder that causes disabling motor symptoms, particularly in relation to gait and balance, severely impairing people’s ability to walk. In addition to the reduction of the quality of life of both PD patients and their families, the wider economic impact of PD is huge: direct medical costs incurred by national health insurers/payers in Europe are on average €17.3k/patient/year related to gait, balance, and falls. Yet, optimal solutions to assist patients in their daily lives for improving gait and balance and minimizing falls are extremely limited.
PD is becoming a health crisis so action is needed now to reduce the health, economic and social burden for people with PD. As an answer to this problem, the UK company Strolll has developed a revolutionary technology to help people living with movement-impairing neurological disorders.
Strolll’s mission is to transform the everyday reality of mobility for the millions of people living with motor-disabling neurological disorders and their families by developing intelligent digital therapeutics AI software solutions for Augmented Reality (AR) glasses that empower movement in everyday life.
Jorgen Ellis, co-founder of the company tells us about their experience with the EIC Accelerator and explains how their journey started- and what they want to achieve.
The Coloured Line that Showed Them the Way
Thomas Finn started Stroll because his father had vascular Parkinson. As he had lost most of the ability to walk, Tom asked the physical therapist for some advice.
They told him about putting coloured lines down on the floor to help him bypass the impaired neural pathway that was affecting his movement and engage a more attention or goal-directed motor pathway. When he went home, he put some coloured lines down on the kitchen floor, and his father just started walking back and forth across these lines like he had in years prior:
“And it was so inspiring for him that he thought: ‘I can’t just have colored lines in the kitchen, so how do I enable this for him to go anywhere he wants and for other people with Parkinson’s as well?’. And so he thought of using this new technology and augmented reality glasses to improve people’s mobility. That was the original idea for the company”- explained Jorgen.
Personalization and Adaptation: How Strolll’s Technology Is Evolving
Strolll designs and develops software to alleviate and prevent motor symptoms related to gait, balance, and falls, with multiple future potential applications for other neurological disorders of global relevance such as stroke and multiple sclerosis. Right now, Strolll’s team is focusing on adapting their technology to the real world in real time:
“If somebody walks across your path, the augmented reality glasses have to see that and adjust and compensate for that, for the person wearing the glasses. And we also have to be able to personalize these cues to people. That’s how you make them most effective”- said Jorgen.
This personalization varies depending on the person, as some may prefer colored lines, dinosaur footprints, 3D blocks or obstacles to step over. The solution must also be adapted to users height, step lengths, walking speed, etc.
Ambitious Goals to Really Make an Impact
“Our goal is to be the most used rehabilitation software in the world”
They aim to get to 7 million weekly minutes of rehabilitation by New Year’s Eve 2029. They do not only want to be the biggest or most valuable company: they want to have the most impact. “We get lots of videos of patients using our devices and seeing that kind of transformation, which is really cool. And so how do we make impact? Impact comes from people using the device. And so our goal is to be the most used rehabilitation software in the world, not the most valuable company that probably will be a byproduct of becoming the most used rehabilitation software in the world. But it’s not our primary goal”- stated Jorgen.
Challenges and the Motivation to Overcome them
“It’s not easy to do. If it was easy, everybody would be doing it”
There are very few companies doing augmented reality rehabilitation:
“These devices are extremely expensive, they cost three and a half thousand dollars. So creating a business model that’s sustainable around that and raising investor financing is very hard. But we’ve chosen that path because we believe in it, and we think that’s the future. And we’re willing to do the hard work and be the company that pioneers and breaks through it”.
According to Jorgen, building a company itself in its early days is very challenging. Executing ideas and actually delivering on a plan is the hard part:
“I think the hardest part is transitioning from a couple of founders with an idea and raising that very first round of funding. You really need exceptional people and you can’t afford to pay exceptional salaries. Crossing that chasm to make the company grow and scale and build out a team is quite difficult. This is my second company now and it never changes. And actually, sometimes I forget just how hard those first few days and those early days are”- explained Jorgen.
Strolll’s Experience with the EIC Accelerator
“The experience with the EIC has been definitely challenging and competitive”
The EIC Accelerator is a highly competitive competition. It’s an extensive application process, both in terms of the detail and documentation, and applicants need to provide the clarity of the plan they want to undertake for the project.
“It’s definitely the most competitive grant process that we have been through. But actually, that shaped us. And we got rejected on the first interview that we did. And we went back and we did it again. But that’s given us resilience. It made us refine the product. It made us ask ourselves some hard questions. And to go again and improve. And I think that’s what the EIC Accelerator is designed for. It’s about funding the best companies with the brightest ideas that can have the most social impact. And so if you can get over that high bar, then that’s some real credibility and accreditation that comes from that. So we’re incredibly proud that we have been awarded a grant and are now getting into the project”-claimed Jorgen.
How Strolll met Strata
Strolll was introduced to Strata through one of their VC investors:
“We had an interview and we really liked Strata’s approach and their track record. We worked with Strata for probably 18 months, maybe even two years to get the project from that very first meeting to winning the grant. We had to work a lot, people underestimate the time involved but the support from Strata has been fundamental and makes it all worth it”- concluded Jorgen.
