Latest news with #AadeelAkhtar
Forbes
30-07-2025
- Health
- Forbes
L3C Helps Maker Of Bionic Hand Serve Those Who Can't Afford It
When he was about seven years old Aadeel Akhtar visited Pakistan with his parents, who were born there, and observed something he'd never seen in his hometown of Chicago—a girl around his age missing a limb and using a tree branch to get around. That's when Akhtar, now 38, decided he was going to invent prosthetics that could help people missing limbs. In 2015, he founded San Diego-based Psyonic to achieve that goal, starting with a bionic hand for both humans and robots. Only there was a problem: While Medicare covered the device, that left out a great many people who could benefit from using it but couldn't afford the price. So in 2022, he decided to form a Psyonic Institute L3c, a low-profit liability company (L3C) to finance prosthetic hands for those who wouldn't otherwise have the money to get one. The primary reason: 'L3Cs can accept program-related investment (PRIs) from foundations,' says Akhtar. L3Cs are LLCs whose raison d'etre is to further charitable or educational purposes. In addition, producing a profit isn't the primary goal and they aren't aimed at accomplishing political objectives. Called the Ability Hand, the prosthetic's secret sauce is its ability to allow the recipient to control the hand, using muscles from the remaining limb, turning them into electronic signals. Users can feel sensation from multiple areas of their bionic fingers when they touch an object. Take Sergeant Garrett Anderson, who lost his hand in Iraq when an improvised explosive device exploded in 2005. 'He says he can now hold and feel his daughter's hand,' says Akhtar. During a demonstration at a Shark Tank presentation last year, he also broke a sizeable plank of wood in half. Career Pivot Akhtar originally pursued a medical degree, getting a BA in biology and MAs in computer science and electrical and computer engineering. But while studying to get a MD/PhD in neuroscience, he decided to leave medical school to form a company. While in school, he also worked with the Range of Motion Project, a nonproft which provides prosthetics to people who couldn't otherwise afford them. They developed a clunky hand, but the experience made him decide to leave his MD/PhD program and start a business to develop a new kind of prosthetic hand. Then in 2022, dissatisfied with the device's lack of affordability for most people, he decided to form an L3C—what would essentially be a philanthropic arm able to accept PRIs from foundations, something that seemed to Akhtar to be a more effective approach than choosing to start a nonprofit. Akhtar recently formed the Ability Fund, which can accept donations to give someone $25,000 for getting a bionic hand, in partnership with the Range of Motion Project. The L3c is facilitating the fundraising. Raising Money and Next Steps In 2020, the company closed on a $1.4 million round from angel investors and venture capital. Last year, they closed on a $4.1 million seed round from more than 2,300 investors through an equity crowd-funding campaign. Akhtar chose that route in part because of the company's substantial social media presence. According to Akhtar, half of sales come from an active and effective social media campaign. Last year, he also appeared on an episode of Shark Tank, where three of the judges agreed to invest a total of $1 million for a 6% equity stake. The company is moving to a 22,000-square-foot manufacturing plant and Akhtar is eyeing an IPO at some point so he can ramp up production. He plans to introduce a new Ability Hand over the next two years, to redesign the device for partial-hand amputees and also to produce a leg prosthetic.
Forbes
07-06-2025
- Business
- Forbes
Prosthetics Startups' Biggest Market Isn't Humans. They're Building Hands For Robots Instead.
Aadeel Akhtar, the founder of Psyonic, has a PhD from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champain. Matt Carney was good at building robots — he just didn't want to. While earning his PhD at MIT, he'd spent years studying mechanical engineering and biomechatronics in service of developing bionic prosthetics that could help people who'd lost limbs. He hoped to build robotic legs that could pick up on the phantom signals sent by a body's muscles or function autonomously so it could move naturally, unlike the plastic, unmoving prostheses that are common now. But as he began talking to venture capitalists about funding a company that would develop these so-called bionics, he quickly discovered that the market didn't want robotic devices that could replace human limbs, it wanted robots that could replace human beings, the sort of humanoids championed by sci fi laureates like Isaac Asimov and self-appointed tech visionaries like Elon Musk. Investors cautioned him against venturing into the cost-heavy medical world and regularly asked if he might be more interested in building humanoids or exoskeleton suits. Even trusted experts building bionic limbs told him the technology currently available wasn't advanced enough to be truly helpful. Without a breakthrough in AI, let alone an addressable market, building futuristic robot body parts wasn't something investors would bankroll. So Carney looked elsewhere, taking a job as chief engineer at Persona AI, an early-stage contender in the field of humanoid robotics that has raised $27 million in funding. It's facing off against much larger startups like Boston Dynamics, Foundation Robotics and Figure AI, which have achieved valuations greater than $1 billion for their human-like bots. Then there's the elephant in the room: Musk's Tesla, which the world's richest man has pivoted toward building humanoid robots, with the idea that they'll generate trillions in revenue for the company and someday outnumber humans. Musk has touted a lofty vision of the future where he sees these robots as a catch-all method for labor, posting on X about replacing surgeons, being a 'personal C-3PO or R2-D2' to perform the bidding of an owner, and, of course, driving a car. Much of the tech world seems sold on them, too. The Information reported Wednesday that Amazon will begin testing out package delivery with humanoids. Speaking onstage at an event in late May for the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation and Institute, billionaire venture capitalist Marc Andreessen said that humanoid robotics provide a solution to regaining manufacturing dominance in the United States, with these robots performing tedious tasks such as installing screws on an assembly line. Carney plans to return to the prosthetics space one day. But he isn't the only entrepreneur who originally wanted to focus on building so-called bionic limbs to help real people, and instead have been pushed to follow the money: why not build for robots too? Take San Diego-based Psyonic, which officially launched in 2021 solely as a prosthetics company, building a waterproof robotic hand with built-in sensors to register touch sensations (alongside perks like the ability to charge a cell phone). Psyonic found some early traction, with Medicare covering the cost of its hands for patients. It was last valued at $65 million in 2024 and has raised a total of $8 million, according to PitchBook. Not long after launching, CEO and founder Aadeel Akhtar started to realize that there could be an entirely new market for his startup's hands, signing on Meta as an early robotics customer for an AI project. By 2023, humanoid robotics were booming, and demand skyrocketed. Now, the majority of Psyonic's business comes from selling its hands to manufacturing firms and robotics companies like Apptronik, which has raised more than $400 million to build humanoid, general purpose robots. The robotics side of his business 'is growing exponentially right now,' Akhtar told Forbes, later adding, 'The big draw there is being able to have one generalized robot do many tasks as opposed to activity specific robots.' Shifting toward catering to humanoid robotics startups comes with advantages. The hundreds of millions being poured into the space is helping commoditize the cost of the core technologies — the actuators, sensors, control methods and carrying capabilities needed to build both humanoid robots and bionic limbs. Akhtar said the shift has helped it further develop its prosthetics technology, and lower its prices. For San Antonio-based Alt-Bionics founder and CEO Ryan Saavedra, who was inspired to build inexpensive robotic hands after his hand was injured in a rock climbing accident, Apptronik is also a major customer. Now, the company sells more robotic hands than prosthetics to 'tier one humanoid companies.' It's a form of 'cross-pollination,' Saavedra said. And Leeds, England-based COVVI, which makes prosthetic hands with the ability to move individual fingers, recently launched a robotic hand tailormade for humanoid robots. 'Every humanoid robot needs robotic arms and legs,' said Connor Glass, the CEO and founder of Phantom Neuro, which is developing a non-invasive implant that enables a person to control a prosthetic device and works closely with prosthetics companies. 'Now [startups] are able to pivot in a way, and try to generate revenue by working with these humanoid robot companies.' It looks like a savvy business move. A Goldman Sachs report from 2024 projects that the total addressable market for humanoid robots will reach $38 billion by 2035. It projects that millions of general purpose human-shaped robots will be produced by then, with a 40% reduction in costs. (Right now, they're often prohibitively expensive; Apptronik is targeting a $50,000 price tag but hasn't reached this unit price, and Boston Dynamics' Atlas robot reportedly costs hundreds of thousands of dollars.) By contrast, there are only 5.6 million U.S. citizens with limb loss or limb difference, according to the Amputee Coalition. That makes this a very small market, and one that's accessed through the U.S. healthcare system. It can take years and millions of dollars to get a more advanced product through the FDA or navigate a complicated insurance system. Robots don't have such hurdles. Not all prosthetics startups are going after this new opportunity. Joel Gibbard, who cofounded Bristol, U.K.-based Open Bionics in 2014 and has raised $18 million to date, has decided to stay focused on making its 3D-printed bionic arms for humans, not robots. 'Everyone in this space is probably having those ideas, thinking about it as a growth opportunity,' Gibbard said. 'I don't know if we've made the right judgment, but I can tell you that we've made a conscious decision.' Bionics needs a watershed moment to get investors' attention, said Tyler Hayes, founder of Atom Limbs, which is building a complex AI-powered arm. 'A company is going to need to demonstrate a pretty significant breakthrough, as the public would see it, for bionic limbs to get that kind of traction,' he said. Building robot limbs for bots is far from a sure bet. Ken Goldberg, the cofounder of robotics firms Ambi Robotics and Jacobi Robotics and a University of California-Berkeley professor, told Forbes that while advances in humanoid robotics are possible in the (very) long term, the timeline and hype surrounding them are exaggerated. Videos promoting these humanoids' capabilities are often misleading, and there's always a wizard behind the curtain, he said. 'Robots are getting very good at locomotion, walking, and so there are all these robots out there that look like humans, walk like humans, and people think 'Well then, they are humans',' he said. 'Manipulation, the hands, is where the challenge is.' (That's why his company, Ambi Robotics, is building purpose-built AI-powered robots that can grip and sort packages, while his newer startup, Jacobi Robotics, is developing purpose-built robots for moving items on and off industrial pallets.) Simple tasks like folding a box or clothes, anything that requires dexterity, are challenging and harder than an activity like walking. It's no wonder humanoid startups are looking toward bionic prosthetics for help. 'We're nowhere near being able to automate those things,' Goldberg said. 'Hands on a robot is a surprisingly big leap.'
