RocketBody, Inc Company Profile
RocketBody, Inc. was formed from former professional athlete Tim Lipsky, and a team engaging sports medicine physicians, experienced fitness professionals, and top-notch hardware and software engineers.
The Minsk, Belarus-based start-up was started following Lipsky’s recovery from a spinal and knee injury.
Lipsky, alongside neuroscientist Paul Bulai, engineered designs for a product that tracks metabolic rate and supercompensation from Lead 1 EKG signals.
With the addition of COO Eugene Zolotariov, RocketBody expanded its team, and developed prototypes, leading to a successful pre-seed investment round in 2017 acquiring $1 million USD.
They attended numerous industry events like the Wolves Summit in Warsaw, Poland to to build interest in the project.
They claimed to have spent months testing early variations of the product on numerous professional athletes. By 2018, their fully functioning prototype was set for data collection for AI enhancements.
What was the RocketBody Fitness Tracker and App?
Similar to the marketing angle covered in our V Shred review, RocketBody’s origin story began with a vision to disrupt the fitness industry and create a smart watch/fitness tracker that went beyond the typical. It was marketed as your own “AI personal trainer” for every training session.
Encased in aluminum and Gorilla Glass, the idea of the RocketBody product was to be more than just a personal wearable.
It was supposed to be a comprehensive fitness solution capable of tracking metabolic rate, providing real-time coaching, and even “adjusting your metabolism based on your schedule.”
The RocketBody app would also give you can accurate and balanced plan with custom workouts, custom nutrition plans, goal achievements, and captured user data.
Target Customers
The brand promised that RocketBody was capable of features beyond typical fitness trackers and was marketed towards fitness enthusiasts.
- People into Healthy Living: The product would pair tech and wholistic health with diet recommendations based on your workouts.
- Bodybuilders: Serious gym-goers would get custom workouts, calorie calculations, macro recommendations, and sleep and stress management based on supercompensation cycles for fat burn, weight gain, or weight loss.
- Runners: RocketBody could help improve stamina and increase speed with recommendations based on workouts and nutrition.
Features List
RocketBody’s advanced components were to include:
- Real-time coaching using AI to analyze input data
- Goal tracking and management for your training schedule
- Daily Health Tips including custom workout and diet plans
- Sleep and stress body readings
The wearable would also have the basic functionality of a smart watch.
The Science Behind RocketBody
RocketBody’s competitive edge was based on its unique ability to read and process EKGs from the human body. After researching EKG signal processing, the brand explained that a user’s EKG readings would be “pure medical grade,” lead 1, via three electrodes.
Algorithms would transform all the data into meaningful insights and use personal metabolic rate to identify “supercompensation” based on EKG forecasts.
Proposed Tracking and Measurements
RocketBody promoted the product as “the world’s first personal wearable that tracks metabolic rate” in order to reach peak performance levels tracking:
- Workout efficiency
- Stress level
- Sleep quality
- Metabolic rate
- EKG
- Heart rate (HR) and Heart rate variability (HRV)
Warranty
The product planned to come with a 1-year warranty.
Product Timeline
The product’s Kickstarter page included a milestone graphic starting with these previous achievements:
- 2015: The RocketBody concept was created
- 2016: Hardware engineers began real prototype development
- June 2017: Patented the metabolism evaluation and two-lead EKG reading processes
- September 2017: The App was added to the App Store
- January 2018: Implement algorithms for the artificial intelligence engine (AI) and started collecting data
- February 2018: Ready to produce TRL8 hardware prototype
- May 2018: Start Kickstarter campaign
And these were the proposed dates after the Kickstarter campaign went live:
- June 2018: Finalize industrial design
- August 2018: Android app release
- September 2018: Serial production
- October 2018: Deliver product
Kickstarter
The Kickstarter project for RocketBody launched in May 2018 and achieved positive results initially with the release of a working prototype demo video, but weakened in later months.
Financial Goals and Rewards
The project was fully funded on May 4, 2018, topped out at $70,243 of their $30,000 goal.
This was thanks to their reward tier backers:
- Pledge $1 or more: Chosen by 22 backers, this option included project updates.
- Super Early Bird: Priced at $99, this included the RocketBody wearable and had 422 backers out of 425 open spots.
- Early Bird: Priced at $119, this included the RocketBody wearable and had 6 backers.
- Super Double Pack: Priced at $149, this included two RocketBody wearables and had 92 backers out of 125 open spots.
- Super Triple Pack: Priced at $199, this included three RocketBody wearables had 27 out of 100 open spots.
Priced at $4,999, the Dinner with RocketBody Team tier included three RocketBody wearables, a paid flight to RocketBody HQ, a 5-Star Hotel stay, and dinner with the RocketBody team. However, this reward had no backers.
Updates
The RocketBody team kept their backers informed with regular updates. On May 4, 2018, they announced that the project was fully funded. They continued to post financial updates, live stream Q&As, and development plans until the funding portion ended on May 31, 2018 with $70,243 raised.
After the funding period, the team continued to post updates semi-monthly filled with their plans working with investors, organizing backer challenges and contests, encouragement to download and use the app, and photos of a final industrial design, and a fully functioning RocketBody prototype.
However, on January 29, 2019, they announced intentions to refund backers due to “overestimation of our strength in hardware”. The remaining updates gave more information on the status of refunds, but backer comments indicate that no money was refunded.