Movetru
Continuing our Company of the Month series on health and life science companies across NI, we speak to Movetru CEO, Naomi McGregor.
Continuing our Company of the Month series on health and life science companies across NI, we speak to Movetru CEO, Naomi McGregor.
Naomi trained as a classical ballet dancer from the age of four and helped with teaching at her dance school. Ten years later, when she was 14, Naomi experienced a knee injury and after a further three years, and eight different specialists, her injury was finally diagnosed and she was told she may never dance again.
Naomi’s story is not unique, and people across the world suffer from life-altering injuries that could be dealt with in a more efficient manner or even prevented entirely. Motivated by her frustration, she decided to do something about it and started a Master’s degree in Product Design Engineering at Queen's University Belfast, where she graduated with First Class Honours.
For her final year dissertation, she worked on her own idea for a device to prevent injury and aid rehabilitation.
This was the basis for the creation of Movetru and by July 2020, Naomi had been in conversations with a range of people who could see the gap in the research space to make sure sports rehabilitation in the home was being done safely and correctly.
Naomis’ research also highlighted a huge gender equity problem regarding the lack of research on women-based studies.
Movetru is a wearable technology company with a focus on rehabilitation. It supports performance tracking for athletes, specialising in ACL injuries.
ACL injuries take 9-12 months to recover from, have a 55% recurrence rate, and are up to eight times more likely to occur in female athletes.
“We need to make healthcare more accessible for everyone, especially for those involved in physiotherapy and sport sciences” says Naomi who says her main drive now is the stark figure that 25% of the 20 nominees for the 2022 women’s Balloon d’Or were sidelined with an ACL injury.
Naomi describes her role as, “constant learning as you need to know about every part of the business, product, and customers and understand the athlete’s needs”.
So why did she decide to stay and base her company in NI? “There is great technical talent locally and then covid opened the platform to reach out to global connections for funding through virtual calls, this unlocked any barriers to NI funding.”
Movetru has received support from Innovate UK, the Royal Academy of Engineering, QUB Enterprise SU, Techstart, Future Screens NI and Invest NI.
“The invaluable support from the Royal Academy of Engineering Enterprise Fellowship was a huge turning point in our journey. It was a 12-month training programme which supported me as an engineer and a business owner, providing £50k in support and training from St. John’s innovation centre and also providing us with connections to industry experts.”
In 2022 Naomi received the Innovate UK Women in Innovation Award, and more recently, the Innovate UK Smart Grant for a £500k project alongside an angel raise.
“Movetru's wearable technology is a smart garment containing sensors which transmit information directly to your smartphone. This allows you to take control of lower body injuries by customising your performance tracking. It removes the subjective nature of physiotherapy and provides insights and data to improve athlete’s game and allows them to understand how they are exerting their body.
“I have this opportunity now to advocate for women in engineering and women in sport and discuss those difficult issues and how women's healthcare studies aren't good enough. I am excited for the potential to make research equal for all.
“We intend to fully launch this Autumn (2023) and I excited by the potential Movetru has to support healthcare, to take the burden off doctors and physiotherapists by giving us the control in the home with the patient.”