“If I can prevent one other person from going through that dark, lonely & mental struggle that I had for three years, everything would be worth it,” says Jodie Sinclair, CEO and founder of Theo Health.

Just weeks before joining university, Sinclair suffered a serious sporting injury. A dislocated knee and ruptured anterior cruciate ligament confined her to the side lines for years.

Growing up in Lewis, Sinclair was a keen sportsperson all her life, and this period exacted a serious toll on both her mental and physical health. Furthermore, it limited her ability to explore and engage with like-minded individuals during those vital first months at university.

“When you go to university it’s where you’re meant to find your tribe and meet new people,” she says. “But suddenly I had an identity crisis, because that injury meant I couldn’t go off and perform and meet new people through rugby or football.”

During her lengthy recovery process, Sinclair admits she fell into a “pretty deep depression” and keeping up the motivation to carry out her physiotherapy was difficult. However, it was during this challenging period that she found the inspiration to launch Theo Health.

The healthtech startup specialises in smart clothing and hopes to revolutionise the way athletes track performance and monitor recovery. The company’s first flagship product is a unique type of compression short, complete with embedded muscle sensors.

“This will show you what percentage of muscles are activating, when they’re activating and show you when the muscles start to fatigue. So not only can it make your training more effective, but it can help prevent overtraining and protect you from injuries,” she explains.

Helping mind and body

Initially, Sinclair says the idea for Theo Health focused largely on “seeing and understanding what was going on under the skin” and providing users with tangible signs of improvement – an aspect of recovery which she struggled with, especially in the beginning

However, while the startup began as an injury recovery device for athletes, Sinclair says the product has since “grown arms and legs”.

The compression shorts are still the core focus for the company, but she hopes to also address the underacknowledged psychological element at play in injury recovery.

Motivation, encouragement and inspiration are vital and help embolden the patient when embarking on a recovery programme – and Theo Health aims to bridge what Sinclair views as traditional gaps in this process.

“All I wanted was my physio to ask if I was actually okay. And that’s not their job. But that correlation between the mental aspect of the injury and the physical side are so closely linked.

“With Theo we’re looking to tie that together. They’re equally important and have to be addressed,” she says.

Sinclair says that an integrated app which complements the wearable tech will play a key role in motivating users, foster a culture of accountability during recovery and streamline processes for medical practitioners, as well as giving coaches a greater insight into their athletes’ training performance.

“In the last five years alone, we’ve seen such a surge in access to data, and yet physios are often asking patients how they’ve been, and whether they’ve done their exercises,” she says.

Based on her own experiences, Sinclair questions whether physios or coaches can “truly quantify” a person’s recovery based on these traditional processes. But with Theo Health she believes there is an opportunity to serve both patient and professional.

“We’re giving the physio hard data and the user accountability. Your physio or coach will be able to see if you’ve done your exercises,” she explains.

“There’s also the psychological element here in terms of encouragement. We can offer users the hard stats that show they’re recovering or improving – or the reverse.”

Gathering pace

At present, things are gathering pace for Sinclair and Theo Health. While the flagship product hasn’t officially launched yet, the firm has its MVP and is working toward creating an alpha product.

Due to the fact there are “a lot of moving parts”, Sinclair says the startup is outsourcing certain aspects of development.

“We’ve got our app development ongoing, and we are working with a team from MIT in the US on the e-textiles side of things. So right now the main focus is ensuring we’re making good progress,” she explains.

So far in the journey, Theo Health has experienced funding success. This year, the startup won funding through the Scottish EDGE scheme. And more recently, Sinclair scooped up funding through the Converge pitch challenge.

Success through Converge and Scottish EDGE both represent a “great stamp of approval” she says, and the relationships developed through both these competitions have been vital.

International Experience

Perhaps the most impactful experience so far for Sinclair has been her involvement in Startup Grind’s Silicon Valley trip.

Sinclair travelled to the US alongside a host of Scottish-based founders and execs to immerse herself in the hustle and bustle of America’s home of tech. As the youngest company in the cohort, she admits the experience was at times overwhelming, but highly rewarding.

“A huge acceleration point for us was after the Startup Grind trip to Silicon Valley,” she says.

“It was very intense, and most conversations were a steep learning curve as I don’t come from a  business background. But it meant that every time I’d come out of a meeting or conversation I’d have learned something new.”

The relationships developed during that trip – both commercial and personal – will be hugely beneficial moving ahead, Sinclair believes. Being able to draw upon the advice of experienced counterparts and mentors will be critical as the company begins to scale.

And there’s a lot on the horizon in the coming months, including their current pre-seed fundraise for half-a-million pounds. Despite a precarious economic situation, Sinclair remains hopeful that the company can continue to build. At time of writing, the startup has raised half of its goal and is seeking a lead investor to come on board.

“Obviously as we’re on the cusp of a recession right now it adds a bit of difficulty to raising funds,” she explains. “But our main challenge is keeping momentum. We want to continue developing our product, seek endorsements, further seed raise and then go to market from that.”

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