Interview: Joana Figueiredo, eDynamics. Predicting Injury Before It Happens

The interview with Joana Figueiredo, C0-Founder and CEO at eDynamics Technologies, a startup from Portugal, developing AI-driven musculoskeletal fatigue monitoring for injury prevention and enhanced performance in sports and industries.

You can listen to the episode with Joana Figueiredo on EmpoWomen Podcast:

Or read the interview.

Elevator Pitch

eDynamics is a digital health-tech startup developing a SaaS solution to assess physical fatigue and predict the risk of musculoskeletal injuries. We are targeting both the industrial sector, where we aim to prevent workplace injuries, and the sports industry, where we work to prevent injuries in professional athletes after intensive physical activity.

What inspired you to start this journey?

I believe that something always happens in our lives to set us on a certain path, and that was my case. I personally believe that everyone deserves the freedom to move without pain or restriction. This mission was born from a personal experience with my mom. Due to intensive physical activity at her job day after day without adequate rest, she developed musculoskeletal injuries that became a chronic disease, getting worse over time. Some years ago, she was temporarily paralyzed by these injuries. Watching her go through this constant cycle of injury and recovery completely framed my academic course. I decided to focus on rehabilitation and empowering human mobility.

Through my research, I met the other co-founders of eDynamics, who shared the same mission. We decided to take on this problem on a larger scale and create eDynamics to ensure that everyone can maintain their physical ability and live without injury.

What makes your technology unique?

There are two key differences. The first is our analytical approach. We pay specific attention to the foot, which is the foundation of our motion. We analyze physical fatigue and stress by measuring the pressure and force interaction between the foot and the ground. When you stand for a long time, you feel pressure changes in your feet and you start moving differently; this is your body’s reaction to fatigue. Our technology measures how the entire human body reacts to this stress.

The second difference is that we use this “foot data” to train our AI algorithms to assess cumulative, long-term fatigue—the kind that leads to injury, not just the temporary tiredness you feel after a run. We are continuously tracking changes that you may not even perceive, and this allows us to predict injury risk.

Finally, our technology can assess a group of people simultaneously, unlike most wearables that focus on individuals. This is crucial for an enterprise with many workers or a sports club with many athletes, as it provides a holistic interpretation of the risk associated with a specific activity.

Can you explain the technology? Is it a wearable device?

Yes, our technology has three main core components: hardware, software, and the health analytics that combine them.

The hardware is a smart insole with miniaturized, minimal sensors that you place under your shoe. It’s completely discreet, versatile for different types of footwear, and comfortable enough that you can do your job or activity freely. Developing this sensing part was a hard and time-consuming process.

The software is quite complex. We have low-level software for the hardware, software for our IoT (Internet of Things) network that connects multiple users, a cloud system, and the application dashboard where you see the results.

Finally, the health analytics layer is where our deep-tech AI algorithms analyze all the data to produce insights for health applications. It’s a complex system that goes from the hardware in the foot, through different levels of software, to the final health analysis.

What is your business model and how do you acquire customers?

We are currently in the phase of connecting with customers. Our strategy is to use paid pilots and collaborative pilots. This is a win-win situation: we put our technology inside these organizations and collect data to refine our algorithms, and in return, they receive new, valuable information about their workforce or athletes. We are pushing for paid pilots because the hardware component means we have physical costs to cover.

This collaborative approach is essential. The market feedback we receive is crucial, and we are constantly changing and updating our technology based on it. Our strategy is to go to the market as soon as possible to get this feedback so we can iterate faster.

How did you connect with industrial clients, in addition to sports teams?

We initially tested our solution in sports, and after winning some awards and getting media attention, we started receiving contacts from large industrial enterprises in Portugal. They saw our solution and realized they also needed to assess the physical fatigue of their workers.

After initial conversations with their innovation departments, they connected us with their health and safety teams. Many of these companies told us, “Our workers are also athletes.” They might walk 50 kilometers a day or carry heavy loads, putting the same physical stress on their bodies as a professional athlete. They approached us because they see their people as their most valuable asset and want to prolong their healthy, active working lives, as replacing injured workers is difficult. It was an easy pivot for us because the biomechanics of human motion are quite similar, and our research team already had experience in occupational health.

What are the biggest technical challenges you face?

The hardware is the hardest part. The iteration process is much slower and more costly than software. With software, you can change code, test it, and see results quickly. With hardware, you have to design, develop, manufacture, wait for the new version, and then start testing. We are developing something very small and with low power consumption, so we can’t simulate everything; we just have to build it and try it.

The next biggest challenge is getting high-quality data. There’s a lot of excitement about AI, but AI will only solve problems if the algorithms are trained with accurate, reliable data. The data is the core part; without it, the algorithms will not be accurate.

Tell us about the team behind eDynamics.

Our story is a mix of friends and research colleagues. The three co-founders—myself, Simao, and Christina—worked together in research with a shared motivation to empower human mobility. After participating in some innovation programs and winning a prize to support the startup’s creation, we decided it was time to launch eDynamics.

Our company culture values a sense of ownership, passion for solving the problem, transparency, and self-management. We are currently a team of six people and are fundraising to grow the team soon.

How have you been funding the business?

We officially started our activity in 2023. For the first year, it was just bootstrapping, with the team working without salaries. At the end of last year, we started receiving some awards and grants. We are now in the process of closing a pre-seed round. Our long-term strategy is a hybrid approach: using grants to fund our deep-tech innovation and raising funds from VCs and business angels for sales and marketing.

What prompted you to become an entrepreneur?

Yes, this is my first “baby” in both my personal and professional life. I think the desire is something internal. I’m the kind of person who wants to change things and do them faster. I’m not a conformist. Even during my PhD, I applied for grants and awards and always worked with a team, so in some ways, I started learning that resilience in my research career. The biggest lesson I’ve learned in the last two years is that you can’t control everything; you just have to learn how to prioritize the challenges that come up every day.

What has your experience been with the EmpoWomen program?

The EmpoWomen program has been crucial in teaching us how to translate our technology into a scalable business. As a CEO, I have to constantly think about scalability and revenue. We learned about the program from other Portuguese startups in a previous cohort who gave great feedback. The peer-to-peer sessions are the most important aspect. Receiving feedback from other founders who have already faced the same problems is incredibly valuable.

What are your next steps and ultimate vision for eDynamics?

Our two key goals right now are to close our fundraising round and to get our pilot units out to customers to receive feedback and iterate as quickly as possible.

The ultimate dream is to create impact. I will be happy when eDynamics is a European leader in injury prevention, used across big enterprises where we can help a lot of workers. The most important thing is that the solution is comfortable, useful, and truly prevents injuries. If we create that impact and people recognize the value, the revenue will follow.

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