HUNTINGDON, Pa.—AssureTech, LLC was awarded a $10,000 pre-seed grant from Ben Franklin Technology Partners to continue their development of software and products focused on helping people with severe food allergies. This grant coincides with the company’s release of their next-generation mobile app, the EpiCenter, for user testing in February of this year.
The EpiCenter, AssureTech’s app in development, will aid people with severe food allergies by helping them notify emergency services, pre-designated emergency contacts and get assistance finding a way to the hospital. The app will also translate over 130 different food allergy terms, using a patent-pending workflow to assist users when traveling abroad. The app will eventually sync with a physical device that attaches to the user’s EpiPen or Auvi-Q, alerting him or her if they forget their auto-injector. The company is currently letting interested users sign up on their site to test the app before it is released to the app store to collect feedback. The planned launch of the app is later in 2019, with the physical device to be subsequently released.
Ben Franklin Technology Partners the largest early-stage investor in the state of Pennsylvania. Ben Franklin Technology Partners is an initiative of the Pennsylvania Department of Community and Economic Development and funded by the Ben Franklin Technology Development Authority. The organization provides funding, operational assistance and business support to emerging tech-based companies and small manufacturers for the purpose of creating and retaining jobs in the state.
AssureTech also plans to allocate a portion of the grant to upgrade their existing application, the AssureTech Mobile App. The app, released to both app stores in October of 2018, currently translates the top-9 allergens in 28 different languages, helps users locate the nearest hospital while displaying a translated “help” message and connects them with different resources throughout the allergy community. The team plans to integrate the AssureTech Mobile App with the larger database of allergens, the advanced translation method and improve upon the existing emergency functions to provide a more wholistic solution for food-allergic travelers.
AssureTech hopes to use their new grant to earn an additional investment from Ben Franklin Technology Partners this summer, in addition to advancing their development efforts. A larger investment would expedite the development of their more-advanced app and corresponding device. Anyone interested in showing support for AssureTech’s mission is encouraged to sign up to test the EpiCenter App to help them collect user feedback on their new app’s design.
More information on AssureTech’s allergy management solutions can be found on their site, https://assuretech-mobile-app.com.