Munevo DRIVE

Claudiu Leverenz founded Munevo in 2018 after his studies at TU Munich. Munevo empowers people with disabilities by using new and innovative technologies. People that are impaired by diseases like ALS, multiple sclerosis, muscular dystrophy, etc. or accidents (spinal cord injuries) might not be able to move or are limited in their legs and hands. With Munevo DRIVE they can now steer their wheelchair just by using their head movements. Beginning of 2017 he has been nominated on Forbes „30 under 30 Europe“ list in the category Science & Healthcare. Since 2018 he has joined the Global Shapers Munich, an initiative by the World Economic Forum, to support social projects.

Munevo helps people with disabilities and especially people that are bound to a wheelchair. Munevo DRIVE has already helped many people in Europe but there are far more people that require access to digital solutions as well as a user-centered innovation design. The vision of munevo is to help as many people as possible by giving access to innovative technology like smart glasses, AR, eye-tracking, brain computer interfaces and much more. By that it creates a more inclusive society as well as more independence among more than 1.3 billion people that live with one form of disability.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HFcwaJ6VwKs

There are many reasons people have to depend on a wheelchair and some times those reasons become very limiting. Diseases such as ALS or MS and injuries of spinal cords impact people until the level of not even being able to move their hands anymore. What happens currently is that people have to use mechanical solutions that have to be built on top of a wheelchair. These solutions like e.g. chin controls (a joystick in front of the face & chin) are very hard to adapt and are static. Most of all they are stigmatising and people feel ashamed of being seen with them. On top of that, they are not able to connect easily to other functions.

Munevo DRIVE is using smart glasses to control wheelchairs. In simple terms we use the sensors inside the smart glasses to track head movements. These are then used in a special way to navigate the wheelchairs hands-free. It does however much more. Already integrated is a calibration method that the user can access at any time and on his/her own. So there is no requirement for special therapists or dealer to make an appointment for support. The smart glass comes together with all kinds of features. It includes a small display to show the application menu. It also has sound feedback to create an audio-visual feedback system to allow users to know what they are currently doing. It also has a camera, wifi and bluetooth to connect to any other device. By that the user can be truly independent again. Most of our users mention the small design and that it doesn't look anymore as they are disabled but that they are from the future and cool!

In our first solution we focus on people with severe disabilities that are bound to a power wheelchair and cannot control it via their own hands. This stems from the severe diseases like ALS or MS which always impacts all four extremities at some point. High spinal cord injuries are another reason that comes together with traumata from accidents. People would then not usually know that there are solutions out there that can help you still live a normal life. We have started to work with assisted living facilities when we started the project in 2015 in university. Since then we grew very close to each and every story that we are lucky enough to listen to. This was also the key to develop a solution based on the needs of the user and their struggles in their daily life. Now we have already worked with many clinics and user groups to further develop the solution and/or develop new solutions that use innovative technology at the core and thus, making it accessible for everyone.

Our vision is empowering people and we often leave out the people with disabilities because we believe that it is not the person but the environment that is disabled. We are also advocating for more inclusive design especially when it comes to new technology like smart glasses. Traditionally tech companies develop for standard consumers and not for everyone else. From our perspective this is wrong and it misses out on a lot of new ideas that can be derived from inclusive technology. Our project relates to also building awareness and changing behaviours. But most of all to enable/elevate people.

The project started 2015 in university during the course project. We at the TU Munich were one of the first universities to work with smart glasses. At that time it was a group of students. After developing a very basic prototype, the student group had to decide if it wanted to continue. Many of the students didn't but since many wheelchair users were in touch and wanted to continue, I (Claudiu Leverenz) decided to not stop working on it. I put together a new team (Konstantin Madaus, Aashish Trivedi, Deepesh Pandey & Claudiu Leverenz, now the founders of Munevo) and after finishing my studies the project was awarded a government grant that would enable the team to continue to develop the solutions. From then on the team was on an amazing journey to learn about medical devices and certification as well as continuing to drive their motivation with the help of the inspiring stories of the user they meet. Now the team has grown to more than 14 employees and all follow the same motivation to help people with disabilities.

My personal motivation shifted dramatically when this project was on the brink of stopping after the university project. I was always aware that I will become a consultant at that time because I was already working in this area. However, after meeting people in wheelchair and talking with them. Learning about the most amazing abilities, like drawing portraits with the mouth, it simply inspired me. And to see how much we can impact and help their daily life by adapting a technology to be more inclusive, just flipped a switch in me. After that I became also very involved in general inclusion, not only for people with disabilities but for everybody. I am a Global Shaper since 2018 and lead a core project that teaches refugees to work with computers and finally enable them to get a job position. So at the core of me, my motivation comes form helping people and everyday learning something new, some new story (good or bad) that changed the perspective of the person and ultimately mine too. I am a migrant from Romania and through my work at Munevo and the Global Shapers I have learnt much about me and how people are connected.

My background is in computer science and business (M.Sc. Information Systems at TU Munich). My colleagues and co-founders are the driving force behind the project. All of them being unique in what they can achieve together as a team. Konstantin's background is in engineering but his whole family consists of doctors or medical experts which helped him to identify with the cause even more. It helped munevo because we could validate our assumptions from the medical point of view. Aashish and Deepesh have both studied computer science and complement each other. While Aashish has the most amazing ideas and developed already solution for people with disabilities, Deepesh brings senior development as well as startup experience on board. Deepesh worked at one of the biggest startups in India which was sold to Amazon last year. I have worked in international teams in strategic and IT consulting. I love to share the stories that I encountered during the first years and share the motivation with others. Our team in total consists of mostly software developers which is at the core of Munevo. 

Building a team and a startup is not an easy task and there are always challenges. We are very good problem solvers as well as emergency managers since many times we need to act fast. Building the team however has been very hard from the beginning. In the first team in university everybody was excited about the project but in the end people were not willing to take risks and go for it. This was a big learning for me, when I was by myself and didn't want to give up. With this in mind however it was clear how to look for new people to join the team. I was very transparent what this project should achieve and that there is big risks involved. Another time with the new team, we had to let go of a person, because our values didn't align. From this experience I learned that alignment and communications are key. Our team and the founders have worked since 2016 together and since then we have been the best when it comes to talking about our differences but even more each and every one of us is more aware of himself than before.

My leadership at Munevo is limited to the way that I want everyone to lead, so I try to lead from behind. In uncertain times like now, I do step up and take the lead in implementing methods to keep up communication while in isolation due to the pandemic. I also continue to make meaningful conversations and interactions with the whole team that now works mostly from home. In many cases I still have to learn and surround myself with the best mentors to learn from. Before Munevo in my work as consultant I often took responsibility early on and in the end was responsible for three countries as opportunity manager. For my work at the Global Shapers I have now been nominated to become the curator of our hub in Munich. Prior to this I was invited to Davos to speak about disability and inclusion and thus spread awareness about this topic within the WEF community. 

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Using a smart glass to control a wheelchair has never been done before. The technology at the base itself is innovative in many different ways. Trends discuss smart glasses to become the next smart phones, so that people will not have to look down onto a phone anymore. Combining this innovation with a traditional industry might sound very difficult. In the end it was a necessary step in an industry that is focussed most of all around mechanics. The solution itself does much more than enabling the user. It support the therapists with faster and easy transfer of patient. It helps the distributor/dealer that can support the patient more in details and doesn't have to build anything on top of the wheelchair but to put a cable in. Finally it shows healthcare systems a new way towards the future by long-term analysis and anonymised data insights. By connecting the smart glass to more devices it has already become a platform that can help everybody.

In 2018 we initiated the medical product certification that lead to many tests and validations in a clinical trial. Here we could show that our solution, based on 10 min of learning, can be used in the same way and with the same if not better results compared to other alternatives.

In terms of our theory of change, we aspire to change the views of society by showing that every person, given the right technology & environment, can become anything he/she dreams of. Even now we see that this is possible. I meet Eddie, who is an alumni of an ivy league university and will be the first person in a wheelchair to fly to space. Given that the space ship and space has not been designed to people with disabilities we hope that our solution might be able help. Even if it is just taking pictures by himself. 

Our activities include testing with users and letting them experience the solution. We use the feedback and develop a reimbursement case. In many countries we have succeeded that the solution is 100% reimbursed and people don't have to pay for it. The output is that the user is happy to not have to pay anything in the end. Finally we hope that at some point the device can be integrated in work flows and enable people to work in jobs. By that we also increase the work output of people and strengthen the local community. Most people with disabilities would like to work but are bound to their home environment. We see already an interesting shift now due to corona. We want to support that shift and already provide solutions to connect the device to your computer and control it.

We are in constant communication with our users and also can track the usage data of certain functions. We can then suggest changes to our application based on usage. For example we found out that user change their seat position very often. Thus, we enabled the user to achieve this in a more easy and fast way than before.

Current people (people in a wheelchair): 24

People in 1 year: 400

People in 5 years: 6.500

We will however also focus on elderly people and create an every day life assistant for them in the future. We hope to help more people with this technology. Furthermore we are also developing new solution based on more innovative technology.

Munevo's and my goal is to impact as many people as possible. We get every day messages from all around the world to ask more about the solution and what it can do. By this we learn day by day about the challenges of our users. This year we are still recovering from the pandemic but already see changes happening. Our plan to launch the solution in the US this year has been impacted and thus we will target the next year. We already have two ambassadors in the US that can't wait until we can help them and many more. In 5 years we want to reach more than 6.000 user and help them become more independent. At the same time we hope to have become better company when looking at our footprint and thinking about new ways of more sustainability and maybe the B Corp. certification. We can achieve that by continuing to remember our goal and to communicate and share the stories of all the amazing people we have meet so far.

The current barriers include financial and personell resources. Only this year we found two amazing sales reps that bring together clinical knowledge and experience with reimbursement. They are responsible for Germany, so that we can focus on other countries. At the same time reimbursement doesn't always work smoothly because it is a case by case decision until now. We are working on collaborations with insurance companies and test new models for renting out thee solution. Finally, there are regulatory changes that occur next year. On an European level the team has already advanced in the requirements and is ready for the change. The FDA regulatory in the US still requires more work in understanding the needs of the US. More regulatory changes may incur as technology evolves.

We are currently in negotiations with investors to discuss our third financing round after a friends/family round in 2018 as well as a bridge loan in 2019. Our investors consists of our mentors family and business angel that believe in the team and has continued to do so. We are limited in funding opportunities because the venture capital funds now focus on portfolio companies. However, we just applied for an EU funding scheme and will get notified in July 2020.

We do also engage with many experts and have a strategic partner with regards to regulatory. The company Senetics and its CEO MR. Sening have supported us from the first steps and worked together with us also on the manufacturing side. 

Reimbursement is currently tackled from two sides. One is our current ongoing discussions with multiple insurance companies. The other side is related to ongoing changing landscape of healthcare systems. In Germany a new law has been passed to enable faster reimbursement for digital healthcare products. We hope to be part of this change and currently validate the laws at hand.

At Munevo we partner up with universities (TU Munich, LMU Munich) to work on R&D. We are currently researching in one project around the control fo robotic arms. Furthermore, we do research on our own on eye-tracking and brain computer interfaces. We also have partnered with experts like Senetics that are helping not only with certification but also with production. At the same time we are in close collaboration with the major wheelchair manufacturer. At first only for distribution purposes but maybe later also more closely. We have also strong connections to technology provider like Google. There we consult and help to uncover bugs or design flaws that we find and in the end can be incorporated into the next versions or firmware. Lastly, we work together with clinics such as the university clinic for medical evidence and validation. We have done pilots (e.g. Israel with specialized children's hospital), studies and will continue to do so not only on a local but global level. At the moment we are searching for new clinical partners in the US and have started discussions with the VA too.

Our business model is until now very traditional. We distribute through either medical shops or wheelchair manufacturer B2B. The medical shops or medical dealers are then in charge of the administration for the reimbursement through the insurance or healthcare system. For this and partly for supporting with technical challenges, they receive a percentage of the public price for reimbursement. munevo DRIVE creates impact in all stakeholders. We already mentioned the benefits of our user. The benefit for the dealer are that the installation takes less time than with current control systems and at the same time maintenance time reduces since the user is in charge of adapting the control to his needs via the internal calibration. For the future we want to work more directly with the persons and not wait for long duration until approval for reimbursement. More as subscriptions to the service. This however only works when the mindset of the user will also change towards a more pro-active health approach.

At the moment the solution has been reimbursed multiple times in different countries and we are about to integrate into more healthcare systems for reimbursement. We are grateful that our certification as medical product is EU wide and we have "just" the challenge of understanding the reimbursement system. At the same time we sold also demo units with some margin to different dealers around Europe to increase the efficiency of our distribution. Like this the dealers are trained and can perform tests with user by themselves. In total 2019 we had 6 digits in revenue. We also have been lucky to attract not only grants from government but also donations from foundations as well as high regarded prize awards. At the same time we have been through a friends and family investment round and continue to search for the right investors to help more people globally. Our current plan including the COVID adjustment shows a break-even possibility in 2021. 

2017-2018 Grant by german federal ministry for economics - 107.000 EUR (~120.000 USD)

2017/2018 multiple foundation grants - 100.000 EUR (~120.000 USD)

2015-2020 multiple prize awards - 100.000 EUR (~120.000 USD)

2018 business angel round around 0.5 Mio. EUR (~560.000 USD)

2019 bridge loan around 0.5 Mio. EUR (~560.000 USD)

2019 revenue low 6 digits

2020 revenue mid 5 digits

We were planning to raise funds in 2020 but COVID has impacted the fundraising to the result that we could not finish it and still are trying to find investors. Our plan was to raise around 1.5 -2 Mio. USD to start increasing our sales efforts which include the penetration of our home market, the expansion to new EU markets like Scandinavia, UK, Etc. and the first steps towards the US which includes FDA regulatory challenges. We however have already users and distributors as well as manufacturer that are waiting for us. 

In 2020 our expenses will be around 1 Mio. USD. It includes 120.000 USD in cost of goods sold, 300.000 USD in operating expenses and 580.000 USD in salaries.

We connect the The Elevate Prize to our market entry in the US. Even now during COVID it is more than clear that innovative solutions will pave the road to more inclusive society and more accessible design in technology. The barriers for us in the US are FDA and understanding the healthcare system We already are connected to manufacturer and dealer but we miss the network to business and medical key opinion leaders. We also miss the validation within the US market and the prize would help us to be recognised more. It is not only the funding that can help us with the first steps but really the marketing and network aspect of the prize. At the same time we envision a different strategy already to work more closely with the persons instead of waiting for reimbursement as business model.

Funding and revenue model connects to advisors and board members in order to help us test potentially a new business model as well as tap into US resources. With talent recruitment we saw already a big challenge in EU so we would love to know if we can tackle this with this support. Regulatory matters are related to FDA. However, we hope that since one of our competitor just got FDA, that we can become a precedence case and get this certification in a fast manner. This however depends on the communication with the FDA. Lastly, we need exposure to reach all users (est. 300.000).

We would like to partner in research with universities like MIT to continue research that has been also done by MIT in this area but has never found the market access. we know the barriers and would like to work on these barriers for research to become available for user in the end. We would love to also partner with clinics to have medical validation as we have in EU. We also have been in contact already with the Veterans Department but it is hard to get more information how to collaborate with the VA. We believe that it is a strong partner for us. Lastly, we would like to work with associations for patients like ALS, Spinal Cord Injuries, Multiple Sclerosis.