ShapeScale

This is a Title III deal, which means that all investors -- regardless of net worth or income -- can invest.

ShapeScale is a weight scale that digitizes your body in 3D, so you can see exactly how your body is changing over time.

It creates a photo-realistic 3D model of you that shows exactly where you've been gaining muscles or losing fat. Partnered with its app, you can track which exercises and diets are working for you and optimize your fitness.

MISSION
Billions of people exercise and go on diets because they want to stay healthy or transform the way they look. But there’s no way to truly see the changes as they’re happening.

ShapeScale is solving that problem by partnering its 3D scale with an app that shows you how your body is developing at a glance. It helps you understand your body and shows you the changes you've been working for—even if the mirror doesn't.

STATS
- Its initial marketing and product video went viral on Facebook with 5 million views
- 40,000 people are on the wait list for the product, with sign-ups growing at 1,000 per day
- Funded by Y Combinator in June 2015
- Built first working prototype in 3 months and ran pilots
- Built 5 prototypes iterations since then

As investor and YCombinator Partner Michael Seibel said, "The ability to see yourself in photorealistic 3D gives us a peek at how other people see us. It’s like a better mirror that shows me a really good and unbiased picture of myself. It’s much more powerful than just getting measurements. Because measurements alone do not tell you whether you feel better or worse. ShapeScale has a chance to completely change the way we exercise, eat and also dress."

Shapescale works like most scales do: just step on. But the similarities end there. Shapescale scans your body in 360 degrees and creates a 3D rendering which you can access via the app. You'll be able to see exactly how your body is developing in different visualizations and get personalized fitness tips:

- Using its dashboard, you can see your measurements, weight, muscle and fat percentage all in one place.

- Its "heatmap" shows you where you've been losing fat and gaining muscles.

- And its timelapse feature allows you to create timelapse videos of your progress that you can share with your friends.

The company is launching pre-order sales this year, and expects to start shipping its product in 2017. The launch price will likely be somewhere $199 and $499.

For its first year, it plans to sell ShapeScale mostly through online channels, followed by specialized retail channels in 2017.

ShapeScale comes with a freemium app. At its free tier, users will be able to set their goals and monitor their progress. At the premium level, users will receive tailor-made exercise and nutrition plans among other features.

Beyond that, the company believes there will be many other revenue opportunities such as paid product placements, e-commerce (tailor-made clothes, virtual dressing rooms, etc) and VR solutions (3D avatars for online experiences). The company has also been contacted by several insurance companies that are curious if they can use the information for underwriting purposes.

THE MARKET
Nearly one-third of U.S. smartphone owners—about 46 million unique users—accessed apps in the fitness and health category in January 2014, an 18 percent increase in users compared with the same month a year earlier (Source: Nielsen).

The annual smart wearable healthcare market volume will grow from $2 billion in 2014 to $41 billion in 2020, a compound annual growth rate of 65 percent (Source: CDW Healthcare).

Over 80 percent of consumers said an important benefit of wearable tech is its potential to make healthcare more convenient (Source: PwC).

Today, 1 in 5 Americans own some type of wearable technology (Source: PwC). It's a trend that is only set to increase over time.

ShapeScale says that it won't capture the entire wearable market from the get-go, but it's a good starting point, as consumers of fitness trackers and smartwatches are already conscious about improving their health.

It believe that, in the grand scheme of things, it will exceed the reach of the wearable market. ShapeScale and its successor products stand to replace every scale and mirror across households in the developed world and emerging countries alike.

COMPETITION
There are a number of competitors. Its biggest competitor, based on surveying thousands of potential users, is the mirror. To date, the mirror and traditional "before and after" photos have been showing everyday people results on their progress in fitness or general change in appearance.

On the high-end spectrum -- relevant to mostly fitness buffs -- there are a number of other methods to measure fitness progress, namely:

- Girth Measurements
- Skinfold Measurements
- DXA Scans (bone density measurements using expensive equipment)
- Hydrostatic Weighing

All of these methods tend to be tedious and often prone to human error. More importantly, none of these offer visual aids of where exactly the body has been changing.

There are also some more recent competitors such as "Naked Labs" and "Fit 3D" that focus on their user's body shape exclusively.

ShapeScale captures a photorealistic 3D model instead of a just a 3D model. It not only creates a more accurate and realistic model of its users, but also provide them with nutrition and exercise advice to achieve their health goals. ShapeScale is able to do so because of its unique rotating mechanism that allows for close proximity and high precision of the 3D sensor.

With respect to fundraising, at the end of this year, the company is planning to raise additional capital at a higher valuation from institutional investors.

Team Background

Martin Kessler - Founder & COO

Martin is a hardware entrepreneur with experience in business development, digital marketing, and product marketing.

Formerly, he was a Strategic Account Manager for MWI in Hong Kong; Head of Marketing for Ambi Labs (an internet of things gadget for your home that makes your existing air conditioner a smart home device), and Founder & Manager of Kessler Trading, a trading company of consumer electronics in Hong Kong.

He earned a BA with Honors from the University of Nottingham, another BA from the University of Hong Kong, and his Masters from The Chinese University of Hong Kong.

Alexandre Wayenberg - Founder & CEO

Alexandre is an engineer and designer who's been involved in the development of 15+ IoT products.

He is the former founder of Capsule, a design and engineering consultancy that helped startups and SMEs transform their ideas into products. He has been involved in the design and development more than 15 connected products and has lived 5 years in South China where he acquired hands-on manufacturing and industrialization experience.

He is also the co-founder of Wave Music (a startup that provides an innovative way to manage music for hotels, shops and restaurants), and Doll Memories (a fashion brand that creates colorful clothes for women).

Alexandre graduated from the Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne in Switzerland (EPFL) with a Masters in Micro and Nano Systems and a Minor in Biomedical Engineering.

During his time at EPFL, he was the assistant of Prof. Renaud (BioMEMS) and Schmid (Introduction to Microcontrollers).

He has more than a decade of experience designing PCBs and is a certified PCB designer from the IPC, the Association Connecting Electronics Industries.

During his studies, he co-founded a spin-off of the EPFL – Agorabee, where he developed his first connected devices and honed his entrepreneurship skills.

Agorabee went on to win the 2009 IMD Startup competition and Alexandre was awarded the Venture Leaders prize in 2009.

Co-Investors

Y Combinator

Seed-stage accelerator whose alumni include Scribd, Reddit, Airbnb, Dropbox and Stripe

Nest Investments

Global early-stage venture capital firm focused on helping startups and talented founders from around the world.

AIA Accelerator

AIA helps companies give life to the next generation of digital healthcare.