Featured Startup Pitch: AmbyGear is a smartwatch designed to educate and keep kids safe

By PATRICK MUGGLER, AMBIT NETWORKS/AMBYGEAR FOUNDER AND CEO

ELEVATOR PITCH

The AmbyGear smartwatch is the world’s first smartwatch designed for kids that teaches life lessons while keeping them safe. The smartwatch features built-in GPS, text messaging, and boundary alerts to keep children independent and safe in public, while giving parents peace of mind. Every day, over 1,000 kids get separated from their caregivers and lost, creating stress and anxiety for parents. AmbyGear is solving this problem by combining safety, remote monitoring, connectivity, and fun into a single device, and driving user stickiness with a reward system.

PRODUCT/SERVICE DESCRIPTION

The AmbyGear smartwatch keeps kids safe in public while allowing them to be more independent at the same time. It features downloadable educational games and apps that teach life lessons, promote outdoor recreation, and help kids gain more freedom and confidence to explore the environment around them.

AmbyGear offers a reward system that is connected to all the games and apps in the smartwatch, thus encouraging kids to be engaged and driving stickiness. The reward system can be personalized by the parents who can select the reward type and level.

With AmbyGear, kids can learn about keeping commitments, being on time, and knowing their surroundings through activities such as scavenger hunts and geocaching.

The AmbyGear smartwatch also offers parents peace of mind, allowing them to keep an eye on their children from the convenience of their smartphone with features including text messaging, boundary alerts, and GPS location.

AmbyGear is about the smart use of technology to bring families together. Rather than increasing smartphone isolation, AmbyGear enables a better bond, enabling both kids and parents to be aware of each other, share activities, and be connected.

Unlike other attempts based on adding technology to cheap toys, or cheap colors to older smartphone tech, AmbyGear is designed from the kid’s point of view with a simple-to-use interface and a modern design.

Additional features include emergency notifications, geofences, Bluetooth Smart and Wi-Fi connectivity, secure data and privacy settings controlled by parents, tamper alert, waterproof and shock resistant, seven-day battery life, wireless charging, and no monthly subscription fees.

Future additions to AmbyGear include a SDK for third-party app and games development and a kid’s SDK based on Scratch to help kids design their own app, games and interfaces.

FOUNDER’S STORY

Losing track of your child in public—even for just a few seconds—can be a traumatic experience. As a father of two, I have experienced this firsthand. One day my daughter went missing at Home Depot. While it took just ten minutes to locate her, it felt like hours. A few years later, my wife was on a bike ride with our son and daughter when our son took a shortcut down a path. This time, my child actually did go missing for hours before being found. While my experiences fortunately both had happy endings, it inspired me to create the AmbyGear smartwatch so that parents can keep an eye on their kids even when they’re not within eyesight.

MARKETING/PROMOTION STRATEGY

We have just launched an Indiegogo campaign to allow parents to preorder the smartwatch at an introductory launch price of $99. Full retail price will be $129. The AmbyGear smartwatch is scheduled to ship in summer, 2015. Visit the AmbyGear Indiegogo campaign at http://igg.me/at/ambygear.

Future campaigns will focus on physical presence in high traffic areas where AmbyGear provides the greatest value to its user base (examples: malls, amusement parks, family resorts, etc.).

MARKET OPPORTUNITY

AmbyGear’s target market size in the U.S. is more than 45 million kids between the ages of three and 11. At an average retail price of $129 per AmbyGear, the immediate addressable market value is greater than $5.8 billion.

Globally, AmbyGear’s market is over 450 million kids whose parents have a smartphone, making the potential global market at least $58 billion.

We have booked pre-orders from the U.S., Europe, Africa, Japan and South America. Distributors in the Netherlands, Portugal, Italy and South Africa have expressed interest in AmbyGear.

HOW WE’RE UNIQUE

AmbyGear is the first smartwatch to combine safety and fun in one device. We are the first kid’s smartwatch that is supported by a rewards system which increases user retention.

We have customized the watch for kids with a smaller, more attractive design, and incorporated waterproof and shockproof features for durability. Beyond safety and connectivity, AmbyGear creates the gamification of daily activities for kids whether at home, during a weekend trip to the beach, or on a longer vacation.

BUSINESS MODEL

Initial revenue will come from sales of AmbyGear smartwatch units. Other major channels of recurring revenue may include:

AmbyGear rentals at institutions (e.g. amusement parks, zoos, schools, resort hotels, etc.)
Wearable apps and games, and service revenue from end users
Partnerships with cellphone carriers and other communication/data service providers
Partnerships with family resorts, amusement parks, museums, etc., where AmbyGear connectivity and apps can enhance a customer’s experience (for example: at a resort hotel, kids can gain more independence while parents will know where they are and be in touch. The resort can add a layer to remind kids about activities, time for lunch, etc.)

CURRENT NEEDS

Our Seed round of funding is currently open. We are looking to raise $500,000 to use for continued product development, branding, marketing and a beta program.

AmbyGear is also looking to add experts in data science, and sales and promotions. We also need a family resort partner to run beta testing with a large customer base and a cellphone carrier to help develop the next product.

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HEADQUARTERS: Sunnyvale, California