Regulators Pivot & The Rise of Invisible Tech

With the federal momentum and market movement in mind, Coach L looks at the three macro trends driving our investment committee at Wearable Tech Ventures based on this week’s data.

Trend Number One: The General Wellness Exemption Fast-Track. 

Trend Number Two: The Government-Backed Lab-on-Body. 

Trend Number Three: Agentic Industrial Tech. 

If you are a founder building the next breakthrough in health tech, or an investor looking to partner with the best in the ecosystem:

• Register to be a guest on an upcoming episode of The Wearable Takeover. Let’s get your story out to our network of builders and allocators.
• And if you want to support our mission to diversify, fund, and accelerate the pipeline for underrepresented tech founders, head over to wearabletechventures.org and make a donation to support our community initiatives.

Transcript

00:02.04
Lakisha Greenwade
Welcome back to the Wearable Takeover podcast, the ultimate briefing for the founders, investors, and builders shaping the future of health tech, wellness, sports tech, and fashion tech.

00:15.34
Lakisha Greenwade
I'm your host and also the founder of Wearable Tech Ventures, Lakeisha Greenway, also known as Coach L. Well, folks, you know we are just coming back onto the scene.

00:26.26
Lakisha Greenwade
And we had some hurdles to overcome just you know coming back last week. And so thank you for your patience. But we picked an absolute blockbuster of a time to return.

00:37.59
Lakisha Greenwade
So as we look at what happened during the last week of June, it is proving that the wearable market is undergoing an evolutionary leap. Right now, the total digital health venture capital volume is experiencing some serious late-stage concentration. And you'll see this in a number of articles, but firms like Rock Health tracked over $4.8 billion with a B dollars deployed in opening quarters alone across nearly 400 distinct deals. And this was heavily dominated by nine-figure mega rounds from consumer hardware giants.

01:19.61
Lakisha Greenwade
But the real story isn't just about venture capital moving. It's about major federal funding openings, historic regulatory shifts, and heavy duty industrial workforce integration. So today,

01:35.10
Lakisha Greenwade
We break down a landmark FDA decision for a consumer giant, a massive update in the smart ring wars, and how Uncle Sam is pouring billions, yes, I said billions, into non-dilutive funding for early stage founders. So let's dive in.

01:53.46
Lakisha Greenwade
So let's start with the headline grabbing news that completely shifted the regulatory landscape for consumer health tech this past week. On June 24th, the FDA officially issued a closeout letter dropping its enforcement actions against WHOOP regarding their blood pressure insights featured.

02:12.54
Lakisha Greenwade
Now, if you remember, the FDA originally flagged this last year, sparking a significant debate on whether overnight blood pressure tracking crossed into the line of medical device territory. But following Woot making minor visual and labeling tweaks to align with the FDA's new low risk general wellness guidance, the file is officially closed.

02:37.53
Lakisha Greenwade
Will Ahmed, who is a Whoop CEO, called it a major development for the entire sector. And this is a victory for investors and founders alike. It proves that consumer wearables can deliver advanced deep health metrics without getting permanently sidelined by regulatory red tape, as that's what they like to call it.

02:59.99
Lakisha Greenwade
So combining this with their series G valuation earlier this spring, Whoop is effectively writing the blueprint on how to scale a health platform in 2026. And speaking of massive weeks, the smart ring wars just reached another level.

03:16.92
Lakisha Greenwade
On June the 29th, the first reviews officially dropped for the brand new Aura Ring 5, and it is a total generational leap. Aura managed to slash the device's volume by a staggering 40% bringing it down to a feather-like two grams. Now, while rolling out their new health radar system for real-time blood pressure trends and activity metrics. So as Aura marches aggressively towards its anticipated IPO, who's investing? If you're not already in there, they are setting a near impossible bar for the rest of the consumer hardware market to clear.

03:56.70
Lakisha Greenwade
But the traction this week wasn't just limited to the consumer's wrists or to the finger. So let's pivot to enterprise and industrial wearables, which are quietly capturing major B2B market share.

04:10.90
Lakisha Greenwade
So on June 29th, Mission Control AI officially introduced Bob. Now, Bob is a puck-sized vest. It's a mounted wearable designed to solve a multi-billion dollar crisis, capturing the institutional knowledge of a rapidly retiring blue-collar workforce. So Bob actually clips directly onto a safety vest, and then it travels with industrial experts through their ships and captures audio, images, and precise spatial positions.

04:45.11
Lakisha Greenwade
It feeds that physical, real-world data straight into an on-premises agentic AI platform. And following a product reveal at VivaTech, enterprise leaders in energy and advanced manufacturing spent this past week rushing to secure early pilot allocations. So if you are an investor looking for high-margin SaaS tied to uncopyable hardware, enterprise spatial wearables like this are an absolute goldmine.

05:15.74
Lakisha Greenwade
Now let's talk about non-dilutive capital because if you're a founder right now, protecting your equity is everything. And we just saw some federal funding doors swing right ah wide open.

05:28.22
Lakisha Greenwade
So first up, the National Institutes of Health, also known as the and NIH, officially opened their newly reauthorized parent SBIR and STTR grant cycles.

05:38.81
Lakisha Greenwade
So if you're building a high-impact biomedical or health tech hardware, this is your signal to move. The and NIH is injecting over $1.4 billion into early-stage life sciences this year, and the next major standard receipt deadline is locked in for September the 8th.

05:59.83
Lakisha Greenwade
They've even updated policies to let you use funds directly for cybersecurity and foreign risk screening. But if you want to see where the cutting edge of federal dollars is actually landing,

06:12.86
Lakisha Greenwade
Look at ARPA-H. And so on on June 23rd, ARPA-H announced their pioneering award teams for the MOCS program. And it's an absolute goldmine for wearable innovation. They just funded a series of breakthrough projects, including Team Omega and I think we say it BabiSmart or BabySmart, who are building wearable multimodal platforms and smart belt sensors for real-time maternal health monitoring.

06:41.88
Lakisha Greenwade
Yeah, I think it was Baby Smart. Between these new abhoras and ARPA-H's ongoing Delphi program, which is actively pouring money into next-gen chiplets to track hormones and immune markers, the government is making a loud and clear bet. The future of healthcare care is continuous. Wearable monitoring.

07:04.41
Lakisha Greenwade
Yes. So if you aren't leveraging these grants to de-risk your technology, you are leaving free capital on the table. So with that federal momentum and market movement in mind, let's look at three macro trends driving the investment committee at Wearable Tech Ventures based on this week's data.

07:25.02
Lakisha Greenwade
So trend number one, we're looking at the general wellness exemption fast track. And so thanks to WHOOP's big FDA win on June 24th, expect a wave of startups, rolling out features like blood pressure and metabolic tracking under the FDA's wellness banner, rather than waiting years for clinical 510 clearances.

07:48.22
Lakisha Greenwade
Trend number two, the government backed lab to on the body. With ARPA-H and the NIH aggressively backing everything from smart belts to biochemistry chiplets, Uncle Sam is de-risking deep tech hardware so venture capital can scale it.

08:05.53
Lakisha Greenwade
Trend number three, agentic industrial tech. The next wave of and of enterprise AI isn't a chatbot on your desktop. It's a wearable sensor on a factory floor translating human movement into operational data.

08:24.15
Lakisha Greenwade
Well, folks, that's your weekly recap for the final week of June. And as we move into a move new month in July, ah the innovation is relentless and the capital is moving.

08:37.85
Lakisha Greenwade
So if you are an ah investor, or if you're looking to partner with the ecosystem, or if you're a founder who is building the next breakthrough in tech, register to be a guest on the Wearable Takeover podcast. And then if you are someone that just wants to support our mission to diversify, fund and accelerate the pipeline for non-traditional tech founders, head on over to wearibletechventures.org and make a donation to support our community initiatives.

09:13.50
Lakisha Greenwade
Check the links below to watch our video deep dives on YouTube or on a platform that hosts our podcast. Hit that subscribe button and most importantly, drop a comment below. What are you betting on after this week's news?

09:28.63
Lakisha Greenwade
Are you chasing federal grants or are you looking at the industrial wearable sector? I'm your host, Lakeisha Greenway, also known as Coach L. Keep building, keep backing, and I'll see you next week on the Wearable Takeover. Have a wonderful holiday.

09:46.76
Lakisha Greenwade
Peace.