Welcoming ATHOS

One of the newest companies in the True portfolio—ATHOS—announced their Series B funding this morning, and we are thrilled to welcome the company and Co-Founders Dhananja (DJ) Jayalath and Chris Wiebe to True.

ATHOS makes the world’s first smart clothing that can measure specific muscle activations, heart rate and breathing. With technology two to three years ahead of big sportswear companies like Nike and Under Armour, ATHOS’ gear uses seamlessly embedded sensors to collect and analyze muscle activity and effort, as well as heart and breathing rates—giving people a real-time picture of their workout performance.

As consumer interest in sports and fitness apparel continues to grow worldwide (Boston-based research firm Trefis projects the global sports apparel market to reach $178 billion by 2019), ATHOS is positioned to transcend the fitness and apparel industry by bringing its unique “connected clothing” to the masses. True has been the leading connected device investor since our first investment in Fitbit in 2008, and we believe smart clothing is another frontier of wearable technology. ATHOS is on the cutting edge of this movement, and we are very excited about the Founders’ vision to build a lasting, disruptive consumer brand.

DJ and Chris started ATHOS while they finished their electrical engineering degrees at the University of Waterloo. Like so many young Founders in the True portfolio, they worked on the development of their product in between classes; the first iterations took lab-sized technology and condensed it to the size of a credit card that was then built into interchangeable garments. The technology of course has come an incredibly long way since then, and incorporates electromyography, or EMG, one of the most effective ways of tracking muscles. Benefits of EMG technology had been previously reserved to top performance institutes, but ATHOS embeds these muscle-tracking sensors into comfortable, stylish performance apparel, enabling the collection and interpretation of biosignals, and sending it all to the user’s mobile device via Bluetooth.

We couldn’t be more excited about this cutting-edge technology, as well as DJ and Chris’s vision for a healthier lifestyle through embedded sensors.

DJ, Chris and the entire ATHOS team: Welcome to True!