Leading Health and Life Sciences in Nova Scotia

ACOA: Helping Spring Loaded Technology Ramp up Production to Improve Mobility

May 15, 2018 | News, Spring Loaded Technology

See original news release here

News release

Funding supports Dartmouth-based manufacturer of bionic knee braces May 15, 2018 – Dartmouth, NS – Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency Breakthroughs in health technology result in jobs, create valuable intellectual property and further promote Canada’s standing as an innovation leader. High demand for a bionic spring-loaded knee brace pioneered by Spring Loaded Technology Incorporated is requiring the firm to scale up. That is why the Government of Canada is providing this award-winning company with a $460,458 repayable contribution to help it upgrade its manufacturing operations, increase productivity and improve the quality of life of more people affected by mobility issues. Darren Fisher, Member of Parliament for Dartmouth-Cole Harbour, was onsite today to make the announcement on behalf of the Honourable Navdeep Bains, Minister of Innovation, Science and Economic Development and Minister responsible for the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency (ACOA). The funding is being made through ACOA’s Business Development Program. In addition to acquiring new production equipment, Spring Loaded will also purchase and implement new customer relationship management (CRM) and enterprise resource planning (ERP) software. These new programs will enable the company to expand its reach by facilitating business-to-business sales methods. With increased manufacturing capacity, this project will help maintain 30 full time positions in Dartmouth. As production increases, new positions will be required. This will build on previous projects that helped Spring Loaded establish its manufacturing facility, develop a commercialization strategy, create new products and product features, and further leverage investor dollars. 
 

Quotes

“The Government of Canada is committed to encouraging innovation that increases productivity, growth and competitiveness. We want to turn ideas into solutions, science into technologies, skills into jobs and startup companies into global successes. That’s what innovation is all about.”
  • The Honourable Navdeep Bains, Minister of Innovation, Science and Economic Development and Minister responsible for ACOA
“Dartmouth benefits greatly from having companies such as Spring Loaded choosing to do business here. Not only is Spring Loaded an employer of highly skilled people in the area, but it is also making significant strides in the quality of care for people with mobility issues all around the world. The Government of Canada is pleased to continue to support its long term growth and sustainability.” 
  • Darren Fisher, Member of Parliament for Dartmouth-Cole Harbour
“ACOA’s support to date has helped us bring a game-changing product to the market and stay ahead of the competition. Its most recent investment will help us ramp-up production so we can impact even more people’s lives by enhancing their mobility.”
  • Chris Cowper-Smith, President & CEO, Spring Loaded Technology Incorporated

Quick facts

    • Spring Loaded Technology is an innovative life sciences company focused on mobility restoring bionics. Incorporating its patented liquid spring technology, the company designs and sells Levitation™ – the world’s first bionic knee brace.
    • Levitation is equipped with Spring Loaded’s proprietary tri-compartment unloading technology to immediately reduce pain and damage caused by knee osteoarthritis, injured ligaments and meniscus tears. Spring Loaded’s bionic knee braces are starting to be used to enhance mobility for individuals with a wide range of neurologically based movement disabilities.
    • In 2015, Spring Loaded Technology won the Business Development Bank of Canada’s Young Entrepreneur Award, including a cash prize of $100,000.
    • Spring Loaded Technology was awarded a $1 million contract with the Canadian Armed Forces after successfully qualifying under the Build in Canada Innovation Program (BCIP), which enables early stage companies to pre-qualify to sell to government departments.
    • Spring Loaded Technology has grown from three employees in 2012 to a current payroll of 30.

Contacts

Alex Smith Director, Communications and Outreach Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency Cell: (902) 830-3839 Office: (902) 426-9417 E-mail: [email protected] Keith Gordon Director of Marketing Spring Loaded Technology Cell: (902) 877-4376 Email: [email protected]
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Atlantic Business Magazine: Ones to watch

Apr 30, 2018 | News, Spring Loaded Technology

See original article here CHRIS COWPER-SMITH Co-founder, president and CEO, Spring Loaded Technology Bringing bionic technology to sports enthusiasts and putting a spring in the step of people with knee injuries What happens when a neuroscientist, an engineer and a business student take an entrepreneurship class together? They create a bionic knee, of course. Halifaxbased Spring Loaded Technology was created in 2013 by a trio of knee-injury sufferers: Chris Cowper-Smith (the scientist); Bob Garrish (the engineer); and, Shaw Kewin (the business student). The trio’s communal pain inspired Cowper-Smith to create a brace “that could assist with mobility, rather than just providing stability.” The basis of Spring Loaded Technology is the spring inside: “We just had the small task of reinventing the spring,” Cowper-Smith explains nonchalantly. After four years of development and prototypes, they created a compact spring small enough to fit inside a conventional knee brace. The Levitation bionic knee brace hit markets in 2016 with a sales model focused on selling directly to the consumer through digital advertising. Upon determining the user is a good candidate for getting the spring back in their step, a bracing specialist works with them remotely to measure for the right fit. Next came the million-dollar contract with the Department of National Defense in which they produced 190 military-grade knee braces for the Canadian Forces. The yearlong pilot project concluded with positive reviews from injured military members and the company hopes to be supplying braces in forthcoming contracts. In the summer of 2017, they received $2.45 million in funding through ACOA’s Atlantic Innovation Fund, which they are using to build a human factors testing lab to assess actual usage of the brace. Currently the Levitation is 100 per cent assembled onsite by the company in Dartmouth’s Burnside Industrial Park: the only part brought in is the brace’s casing. For Ontario ex-pat Cowper-Smith (Garrish and Kewin are no longer with the company), the transition from scientist to CEO has been a challenging endeavor: “There’s always that little bit of uncomfortableness, a discomfort, with being a little bit out of your realm,” he says. For him the key lies in creating support, and not just with the knee brace. Reinforcing the company’s leadership team has been at the forefront of his agenda: “There’s been incredible support in the community, and we’ve managed to attract some people who are a lot smarter than me that help me fill in the holes.” “I think a background in science can be really useful for an entrepreneur starting a company, because ultimately what you are trying to do as an entrepreneur, at least in startup, is do a lot of different rapid experiments to figure out how this business is going to work,” says Cowper- Smith. It looks like 2018 will be an aggressive scaling-up year: four of the 33 employees are currently setting up temporary sales locations across the country. The U.S. and international markets are next.]]>