Home-based physiotherapy tech start-up to expand after $1.18m funding

An avatar mirrors a patient as he repeats a guided knee exercise.

- Joyce Lee

A wearable sensor strapped to the patient's shin transmits real-time data to an app about the degree to which he is able to extend his limb. The app displays the avatar and progress of the exercises.

This app-sensor solution, the development of five-year-old Singapore health technology start-up Rebee, has provided more than 200 physiotherapy exercises to strengthen the knees, shoulders and arms of some 850 patients at nine public hospitals here.

The solution, also called Rebee, is going places, specifically Malaysia and Australia, on the heels of the firm receiving $1.18 million in seed funding in June.

Said Rebee co-founder and chief operating officer Seet Yu Qing: "Australia's market faces the same issue as Singapore, where there is a lack of allied healthcare workers."

In Australia, patients in rural areas have to travel long distances to receive physiotherapy, she said.