Hugsy, a Dutch startup that’s developing a ‘smart’ blanket designed to help the care of newborns and premature babies, has raised €200k (~$220k) in seed funding via the Leapfunder European angel investor network.
The blanket started out as a student project nearly two years ago, when CEO and co-founder Sylvie Claes was studying for her MSc in industrial design at the Eindhoven University of Technology.
“The idea came from a collaboration between the local hospital NICU Maxima Medical Center (MMC) in Veldhoven and the Eindhoven university of technology as MMC was looking for ways to improve patient comfort, and asked the team of industrial designers if they could design something to support those vulnerable babies,” explains COO Jody van den Tillaart.
This March the team incorporated as a business, after going through the hardware-focused HighTechXL accelerator program in Eindhoven.
Development on the product has mostly been self-funded thus far. Prior to the seed they’d taken in €15k via the accelerator.
The aim with the new funding is to get a first product into the local market by spring 2018 (and thereafter other markets in Europe, followed by North America) — in the first instance as a home care product for babies up to three months old and/or to help parents that are transitioning a premature baby from a hospital incubator to a crib at…