Ex-Basketball Aspirant Aims to Prevent ACL Tears with Innovations in Knee Airbags
You’ve heard about car airbags deploying within moments to ensure passenger safety. What if there was an airbag for your knee?
That’s the goal of Kylin Shaw, a former basketball aspiring athlete, with his startup, Hippos Exoskeleton. They are developing a “knee sleeve” that monitors stress on the knee joint and inflates around it to guard against serious injuries such as ACL and MCL tears. The sleeve inflates in just 30 milliseconds, which is faster than the 60 milliseconds typically associated with ACL injuries.
“I’ve had a passion for basketball since I was six, and for the next ten years, it became my entire focus,” Shaw shared with TechCrunch.
“I committed to rigorous training… But at 17, just as I was gearing up for NCAA trials and a professional basketball career, I heard a terrible pop in my knee after landing from a dunk,” he recounted.
The injury ended Shaw’s athletic ambitions, but it sparked the idea for an AI-assisted “knee-bag.” He left the London School of Economics to pursue its development.
Hippos claims the brace utilizes predictive AI to identify hazardous movements in real-time, deploying air cushions around the knee, potentially saving athletes significant medical costs.
Shaw and co-founder Bhavy Metakar (CTO) initially bootstrapped Hippos with a $1,000 investment from their savings to create a prototype and garner early pre-orders from clinics and athletes. The startup has since secured a $642,000 pre-seed round from Possible Ventures and Silicon Roundabout Ventures.
Shaw stated to TechCrunch that the company has already garnered “over six figures in pre-orders” and plans to use the newly obtained funding for further product development, aiming for a full launch in about three months.
He mentioned that the final product would be priced at approximately $129, with a subscription plan ranging from $29/month to $99/month, offering AI-driven insights, small air canisters, and workout tracking.
The startup has tested its product with U.K. football clubs and renowned athletes, including U.S. Ski Team world champion Alex Schlopy, who remarked: “I’m impressed by the preventative feature, and it feels incredibly light and comfortable! This brace provides me with a sense of psychological safety.”
Beyond elite athletes, Shaw noted that the device could be beneficial for anyone at risk of injury, such as those in construction or the elderly population.
Hippos appears to be tapping into a significant need. With around 150,000 reported ACL injuries in the United States annually and 8.6 million globally among adults—excluding children—there’s a clear gap. Furthermore, most health solutions are focused on rehabilitation rather than proactive prevention.
Additionally, current companies that address joint protection in sports and rehabilitation primarily concentrate on conventional support devices or post-injury care.
Competitors in this field include Enovis’ DonJoy (orthopedic braces and supports), ExoKinetics’ Zeen (rehabilitation devices), and Shock Doctor (sports braces and protective gear). However, none of these options provide the predictive or reactive technology featured in the Hippos airbag.
Also participating in this funding round were Huggingface’s co-founder and CSO, Thomas Wolf; Wayve’s co-founder Amar Shah; and Dr. James Brown, the lead sports medicine physician at UK Athletics.