A founder’s novel idea to prove his wearable works

In February 2020, Apollo Neuro, a startup that had raised $7 million in seed funding and had just launched, was set to do three sleep studies that would test whether its vibrational wrist-worn device could improve a person’s ability to sleep. At that point, they had 4,500 active users of their first generation wearable. 

When the pandemic hit in March, his studies, which were to be conducted inside of sleep labs, were knocked offline. But Dr. Dave Rabin pivoted. He knew that a good chunk of Apollo Neuro users also had an Oura Ring, a wearable that tracks sleep. Oura’s sleep tracking platform was not quite as good as polysomnography, the gold standard for sleep research, but it was pretty close. He reached out to the company and asked if he could use their platform to see the impact of the Apollo Neuro on users’ sleep. Oura said yes.

Apollo Neuro says it’s charting towards profitability in the next year. And though there is seasonality and other hiccups that can befall direct-to-consumer products, they’ve focused on delivering a defined benefit to their customers. It appears to be working.  

So what? Apollo Neuro’s novel idea ultimately led to a strong connection with another wearable company that could deliver the proof points it needed to show the value of its wearable. And it saved massive amounts of money. That is a major deal for companies that are under immense pressure to keep burn rates low. Outside of buzzy AI niches, the market has shifted in the years since the pandemic to make it far more challenging to raise capital.

“The study cost us so little money to do. It cost us probably like $50,000,” Rabin told me. “If we were to do this in a clinical framework, it would cost millions of dollars.” 

The Sleep Study

The result is a three-year study, conducted in collaborations with researchers at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center and Emory University, that shows the Apollo Neuro was able to increase sleep time, particularly for those who are chronic short sleepers. People who regularly sleep less than 6 hours per night were able to gain an average of 45 minutes of sleep on average after using the Apollo Neuro after cumulatively using the device for four hours. Put another way, users saw significant sleep improvements after four hour-long sessions with Apollo Neuro’s device.