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The Voltpost team.

Photo courtesy Voltpost and Google.

Thursday marked the third Demo Day for the Google for Startups Accelerator: Climate Change program, where startups in the program presented the status of their startup, capping off 10 weeks of programming and mentorship from Google’s robust network of in-house experts, training, and credits to use Google technology.

This year, the 12 companies mostly fell into three broad categories: Artificial intelligence, electric vehicle infrastructure, and providing companies with better data to decarbonize their operations. There are a couple exceptions: For example, Sesame Solar is decarbonizing disaster response, and Bodhi is improving the customer experience for home solar installations.

Google’s startup accelerator programs are all focused on using artificial intelligence, and some have industry themes like gaming or the cloud economy, particular geographies like India or Brazil, or underrepresented founders like Black founders or Latino founders. All the programs are equity free, meaning Google does not take a stake in the companies for participating, and so far 1,100 startups have participated since the programs launched in 2016.

For this latest cohort, all of the participants had to be somewhere between their seed and series A rounds of investment, already generating revenue or with an established user base, with five employees or more, and with the potential to benefit from Google’s Cloud, artificial intelligence and machine learning capabilities.

Soupid Roy Chowdhury, founder of Eugenie AI

Photo courtesy Eugenie AI and Google

Matt Ridenour, Head of Startup Ecosystem at Google in the U.S., told CNBC he derives a sense of meaning in supporting climate change startups.

“I care about climate tech for many reasons, but most personally, having three young children, I often think about the world that they are inheriting. When I read the headlines about the dangers of the climate crisis, I feel a personal obligation to be a part of supporting innovative climate solutions to scale,” Ridenour told CNBC. “This is one of the greatest gifts I believe I can offer to my children and future generations.”

The programs are also good for Google business because they get early stage companies using the company’s technology, giving it an early edge over competitors like Amazon, Microsoft and Apple.

“Google sees value in supporting the best startups and founders around the world. As they work with our people, products and tools, we mutually benefit. And supporting early stage companies sparks further innovation in the ecosystem, providing further opportunities for developers to build their business on Google products — like Cloud and Android for example,” Ridenour told CNBC.

Google has hosted three climate change startup accelerators for North American companies in the last three years, and all 33 of the participants are all still operating, a spokesperson for Google told CNBC.

The Sesame Solar team.

Photo courtesy Sesame Solar and Google.

Using artificial intelligence to fight climate change

Alphabet-owned Google is itself in the midst of a company-wide push to focus on improving its product offerings with artificial intelligence. Many of the companies in the latest climate change accelerator employ AI and machine learning to help with various tasks such as agricultural soil monitoring, decarbonization of commercial buildings, and improving the process of recycling textiles.

“Teams are leaning deeper into developing AI and ML models to address climate change,” Ridenour told CNBC. “By partnering with emerging technologies like these, startups can have an outsized positive impact, developing solutions and innovations faster and more accurately than ever before.”

Agrology helps farmers adapt to climate change by providing field-level data on smoke, drought, irrigation optimization, microclimate weather forecasts from extreme weather, pest and disease outbreaks. Also, Agrology has a system to monitor the carbon content in soil to help farmers quantify carbon sequestration they achieve with regenerative farming practices and, if they are interested, participate in the carbon credit markets.

The Agrology team working on a farm.

Photo courtesy Agrology and Google.

During the Google accelerator, Agrology made its product more accurate.

“Through mentorship they received in the accelerator, Agrology was able to build a new, more efficient API that uses integrated Google Machine Learning products, increasing their training and testing dataset by over 400%, and reducing their error rate by 4x,” Ridenour told CNBC. “This will help them deliver more accurate data to farmers so they can grow better and more sustainably.”

Another startup within the cohort, Cambio, is using AI to help companies decarbonize large commercial buildings.

“Once companies have set their climate pledges, they find that data tracking and decarbonization across any real estate, whether it’s owned or occupied, is the hardest part of their sustainability journey. Implementation remains a blackbox,” Stephanie Grayson, a co-founder of Cambio, said on Thursday during the demo day.

Cambio provides a baseline carbon footprint for a building, and then uses AI based on previous building projects and recommendations from leading building scientists and data scientists to provide the customer with a path on how to get that building to net-zero. “The bottom line is we’re democratizing best in class building science across the industry at large,” Grayson said.

Leia de Guzman and Stephanie Grayson, co-founders of Cambio.

Photo courtesy Cambio and Google.

“During the accelerator, Cambio was able to connect with Google’s real estate team to get direct product feedback and discuss the topic of decarbonizing buildings,” Ridenour told CNBC. “Armed with Cambio’s ML models, managers can plot an entire real estate portfolio’s path to net zero, a near-term requirement for publicly-traded companies as part of the SEC’s latest carbon emissions transparency proposal.”

Another example is Refirberd, which is using spectroscopy and artificial intelligence to sort recycled textiles, remove buttons and zippers, and send processed textiles to the recycler that can best manage that particular batch of textiles.

Eugenie.AI uses artificial intelligence to help heavy manufacturers track their emissions, report that data for any relevant compliance standards and reduce those emissions with recommendations on how to solve a particular problem.

Refiberd co-founders, Sarika Bajaj and Tushita Gupta.

Photo courtesy Refiberd and Google.

Electric vehicle infrastructure

“As cars become more and more electrified, a variety of startups are tackling the massive EV industry opportunity in creative ways,” Ridenour told CNBC. Indeed, 14% of new cars sold in 2022 that were electric, up from 9% in 2021 and less than 5% in 2020, according to the International Energy Agency.

Batt Genie, one of the startups Google picked for its most recent climate change cohort, was spun out of Venkat Subramanian’s labs at the University of Washington and uses software to improve the function and efficiency of lithium ion batteries, which are used in consumer electronics, electric vehicles and grid storage battery applications.

The battery management system, or BMS, in a lithium ion battery monitors how much charge is left and regulates charging. Batt Genie’s software aims to makes the BMS system more efficient and productive. If a traditional electric vehicle battery lasts for about six years, the same battery can last for 12 years with Batt Genie’s improved BMS, CEO Manan Pathak said on Thursday.

The Electric Fish team.

Photo courtesy Electric Fish and Google.

Another startup within the cohort, ElectricFish Energy, is making an energy storage system that both charges electric vehicles quickly which have smart chargers that store cheap, clean power from the grid when it is available.

“The current state of electric grid is fundamentally broken,” Anurag Kamal, CEO ElectricFish, said on Thursday. “We are the only ones who understands that EV charging is incredibly connected to feeding energy back to the grid itself,” meaning that the ElectricFish device can serve as a source of backup power.

Another company working to improve EV infrastructure is Voltpost, which converts lampposts into electric vehicle chargers. Voltpost has partnered with the New York City Department of Transportation to pilot its lamp posts into EV chargers. And Voltpost is also conducting a pilot at the Detroit Smart Parking Lab in Michigan. During the accelerator, Voltpost connected with the Google Maps team to discuss whether electric vehicle charging locations could be added to Google Maps or Android Auto.

Decarbonization data and reporting

The third area of focus for the startups included in the climate change cohort was improving the data companies use to track their own emissions.

“As governments require more carbon emissions reporting, companies need better data to track their emissions. Startups are offering better analysis and tracking to help customers and consumers understand their emissions and gain actionable recommendations on how to operate more sustainably,” Ridenour told CNBC.

For example, Cleartrace provides auditable emissions data for companies.

“The issue is data around the electricity space, the energy space, and the environmental reporting space, is very hard to come by, very siloed, very error prone,” CEO Lincoln Payton said on Thursday. Before starting Cleartrace, Payton was the head of investment banking for BNP Paribas Americas. “I retired from that to address the biggest issue I saw, which is the quality data available in the transfer to the renewable energy world.”

The Cleartrace team.

Photo courtesy Cleartrace and Google.

Cleartrace is particularly focused on measurement techniques for Scope 3 emissions — emissions associated with a company’s entire supply chain or value chain, which can be fiendishly difficult to track. It’s also looking at helping companies certify how green their operations are, particularly for processes like direct air capture of CO2 emissions and hydrogen production.

Another data-focused company is Finch, which puts sustainability scores on products to help consumers make more climate-conscious shopping decisions. Finch has a browser extension that works on Amazon and Target websites and gives products a sustainability rating between zero and ten, then suggests a more sustainable alternative if applicable.

“For most of the population who believes in climate change and wants to do something about it, but doesn’t necessarily have more than seven minutes to research it online, this is a perfect solution,” Lizzie Horvitz, the founder and CEO of Finch said on Thursday.

Finch sells the data it gathers from consumer behavior to clients, including manufacturers and investors, Horvitz said.

“We are able to see who is buying what and why — that women, for instance, between the ages of 35 and 40 are twice as likely to buy aluminum-free deodorant as men of the same age and location,” said Horvitz.

This kind of data closes what Horvitz calls the “say and do gap,” meaning the difference between what consumers say they will do in a focus group, and what they actually do at checkout.

How Google is reducing the carbon footprint of its massive data centers

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Meet the 21-year-old helping coders use AI to cheat in Google and other tech job interviews

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Meet the 21-year-old helping coders use AI to cheat in Google and other tech job interviews

A person walks past the entrance to a Google building in Dublin, Feb. 15, 2023.

Artur Widak | Anadolu | Getty Images

After landing internship offers from Amazon, Meta and TikTok, computer science student Chungin “Roy” Lee has decided to move to San Francisco.

But he won’t be joining any of those companies.

Instead, Lee will be building his own startup that offers a peculiar service: helping software engineers use artificial intelligence to cheat in their technical job interviews. 

“Everyone programs nowadays with the help of AI,” said Lee, a 21-year-old student at Columbia University, which has opened disciplinary proceedings against him, according to documents viewed by CNBC. A Columbia spokesperson said the university doesn’t comment on individual students.

“It doesn’t make sense to have an interview format that assumes you don’t have the use of AI,” Lee said.

Lee is at the forefront of a movement among professional coders who are exploiting the limitations of remote job interviews, popularized during the Covid pandemic, by using AI tools off camera to ensure they give hiring managers the best possible answers. 

The hiring process that took hold in the work-from-home era involved candidates interviewing from behind a Zoom screen rather than traveling, sometimes across the country, for on-location interviews, where they could show their coding skills on dry-erase boards.

In late 2022 came the boom in generative AI, with the release of OpenAI’s ChatGPT. Since then, tech companies have laid off tens of thousands of programmers while touting the use of AI to write code. At Google, for example, more than 25% of new code is written by AI, CEO Sundar Pichai told investors in October.

The combination of rapid advancements in AI, mass layoffs of software developers, and a continuing world of remote and hybrid work has created a novel conundrum for recruiters.

The problem has become so prevalent that Pichai suggested during a Google town hall in February that his hiring managers consider returning to in-person job interviews.

Google isn’t the only tech company weighing that idea.

But engineers aren’t slowing down.  

Lee has turned his cheating into a business. His company, Interview Coder, markets itself as a service that helps software developers cheat during job interviews. The internship offers that he landed are the proof he uses to show that his technology works.

AI assistants for virtual interviews can provide written code, make code improvements, and generate detailed explanations of results that candidates can read. The AI tools all work quickly, which is helpful for timed interviews.

Hiring managers are venting their frustrations on social media over the rise of AI cheaters, saying that those who get caught are eliminated from contention. Interviewers say they’re exhausted from having to discern whether candidates are using their own skills or relying on AI.

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‘Invisible’ help

The cheating tools rely on generative AI models to provide software engineers with real-time answers to coding problems as they’re presented during interviews. The AI analyzes both written and oral questions and instantaneously generates code. The widgets can also provide the cheaters with explanations for the solutions that they can use in the interview. 

The tools’ most valuable feature, however, might be their secrecy. Interview Coder is invisible to the interviewer.

While candidates are using technology to cheat, employers are observing their behavior during interviews to try to catch them. Interviewers have learned to look for eyes wandering to the side, the reflection of other apps visible on candidates’ glasses, and answers that sound rehearsed or don’t match questions, among other clues.

Perhaps the biggest tell is a simple “Hmm.”

Hiring managers said they’ve noticed that many candidates use the ubiquitous sound to buy themselves time while waiting for their AI tools to finish their work. 

“I’ll hear a pause, then ‘Hmm,’ and all of a sudden, it’s the perfect answer,” said Anna Spearman, founder of Techie Staffing, an agency that helps companies fill technical roles. “There have also been instances where the code looked OK, but they couldn’t describe how they came to the conclusion.”

Henry Kirk, a software developer and co-founder of Studio.init in New York, said this type of cheating used to be easy to catch.

“But now it’s harder to detect,” said Kirk. He said the technology has gotten smart enough to present the answers in a place that doesn’t require users to move their eyes.

“The eye movement used to be the biggest giveaway,” Kirk said. 

Interview Coder’s website says its virtual interview tool is immune to screen detection features that are available to companies on services such as Zoom and Google Meet. Lee markets his product as being webcam-proof.

When Kirk hosted a virtual coding challenge for an engineering job he was looking to fill in June, 700 people applied, he said. Kirk recorded the process of the first interview round. He was looking to see if any candidates were cheating in ways that included using results from large language models.

“More than 50% of them cheated,” he said.

AI cheating tools have improved so much over the last year that they’ve become nearly undetectable, experts said. Other than Lee’s Interview Coder, software engineers can also use programs such as Leetcode Wizard or ChatGPT. 

Kirk said his startup is considering moving to in-person interviews, though he knows that potentially limits the talent pool.

“The problem is now I don’t trust the results as much,” Kirk said. “I don’t know what else to do other than on-site.”

Google CEO Sundar Pichai during an event at the Google for Startups Campus in Warsaw, Poland, Feb. 13, 2025.

Omar Marques | Anadolu | Getty Images

Back to the Googleplex

It’s become a big topic at Google, and one Pichai addressed in February at an internal town hall meeting, where executives read questions and comments that were submitted by employees and summarized by AI, according to an audio recording that was reviewed by CNBC.

One question asked of management was, “Can we get onsite job interviews back?”

“There are many email threads about this topic,” the question said. “If budget is constraint, can we get the candidates to an office or environment we can control?”

Pichai turned to Brian Ong, Google’s vice president of recruiting, who was joining through a virtual livestream.

“Brian, do we do hybrid?” Pichai asked.

Ong said candidates and Google employees have said they prefer virtual job interviews because scheduling a video call is easier than finding a time to meet in available conference rooms. The virtual interview process is about two weeks faster, he added.

He said interviewers are instructed to probe candidates on their answers as a way to decipher whether they actually know what they’re talking about.

“We definitely have more work to do to integrate how AI is now more prevalent in the interview process,” said Ong. He said his recruiting organization is working with Google’s software engineer steering committee to figure out how the company can refine its interviewing process. 

“Given we all work hybrid, I think it’s worth thinking about some fraction of the interviews being in person,” Pichai responded. “I think it’ll help both the candidates understand Google’s culture and I think it’s good for both sides.”

Ong said it’s also an issue “all of our other competitor companies are looking at.”

A Google spokesperson declined to comment beyond what was said at the meeting.

Other companies have already shifted their hiring practices to account for AI cheating. 

Deloitte reinstated in-person interviews for its U.K. graduate program, according to a September report

Anthropic, the maker of AI chatbot Claude, issued new guidance in its job applications in February, asking candidates not to use AI assistants during the hiring process. 

“While we encourage people to use AI systems during their role to help them work faster and more effectively, please do not use AI assistants during the application process,” the new policy says. “We want to understand your personal interest in Anthropic without mediation through an AI system, and we also want to evaluate your non-AI-assisted communication skills. Please indicate ‘Yes’ if you have read and agree.”

Amazon is also taking steps to combat AI cheating. 

The company asks that candidates acknowledge that they won’t use unauthorized tools during the interview or assessment process, spokesperson Margaret Callahan told CNBC.

Chungin “Roy” Lee, a 21-year-old student at Columbia University, is the founder of Interview Coder, a startup that makes software to help computer programmers cheat in job interviews with the help of AI.

Courtesy of Chungin Lee

‘F*ck Leetcode’

If you visit InterviewCoder.co, the first thing that greets you is large gray type that reads “F*ck Leetcode.”

Leetcode is the program used by many tech companies to evaluate software engineers for technical roles. Tech companies such as Meta, Google and Amazon use it to keep tabs on the thousands of job applicants they evaluate.

“Every time I mention interviews, I get frustrated comments about Leetcode,” wrote Ryan Peterman, a software engineer at Meta, in a newsletter posted on Substack in December. Peterman said Leetcode problems are purposely designed to be much harder than what software engineers would do on the job. Leetcode is the best tool companies have to filter hundreds of applicants, Peterman wrote.

Coders said they hate Leetcode because it emphasizes algorithmic problem-solving and asks applicants to solve riddles and puzzles that seem irrelevant to the job, according to those CNBC spoke with as well as comments CNBC found from engineers across various social media platforms. Another downside is that it sometimes requires hours of work that may not result in a job offer or advancement, they said.

Leetcode served as Lee’s inspiration for building Interview Coder, he said. With the help of AI, he said, he created the service in less than a week.

“I thought I wanted to work at a big tech company and spent 600 hours practicing for Leetcode,” Lee said. “It made me miserable, and I almost stopped programming because of how much I didn’t like it.”

Lee’s social media posts are filled with comments from other programmers expressing similar frustrations. 

“Legend,” several comments said in response to some of his X posts. Others said they enjoyed him “f—ing with big tech.” 

Rival software Leetcode Wizard was also inspired by distaste for Leetcode. 

Isabel De Vries, Leetcode Wizard’s head of marketing, told CNBC in a statement that Leetcode-style interviews fail to accurately measure engineering skills and fail to reflect actual daily engineering work. 

“Our product originates from the same frustrations many of our users are having,” De Vries said.

Leetcode did not respond to CNBC’s request for comment.

Henry Kirk, a software developer and co-founder of Studio.init in New York, is considering moving job interviews to be on site in response to software engineers using AI to cheat in virtual interviews.

Photo by Krista Schlueter for Inc. Magazine

When Kirk, of Studio.init, posted on LinkedIn in February to vent about his frustrations with AI cheating, he received nearly 200 comments. But most argued that employers should allow candidates to use AI in the hiring process.

“Even the SAT lets you use a calculator,” said one comment. “I think you just make it harder to succeed on purpose when in the real world Google and gpt will always be at my fingertips.”

Lee promotes Interview Coder as being “invisible to all screen-recording softwares.” To prove its effectiveness, he recorded himself passing an Amazon interview and posted the video on YouTube. Amazon and the other companies that had made offers to Lee then rescinded them.

Lee got hundreds of comments praising the video, which YouTube removed after CNBC reached out to Amazon and Google for this story. YouTube cited a “copyright claim” by Amazon as the reason for removing the video.

“I as an interviewer am so annoyed by him but as a candidate also adore him,” former Meta staff engineer Yangshun Tay, co-founder of startup GreatFrontEnd, wrote in a LinkedIn post about Lee and his video. “Cheating isn’t right, but oh god I am so tired of these stupid algorithm interviews.”

After YouTube removed the video, Lee uploaded it once again.

Cheating as a service

Lee said he never planned to work at Amazon, Meta or TikTok. He said he wanted to show others just how easy it is to game Leetcode and force companies to find a better alternative.

And, he said, he’s making money in the process. 

Interview Coder is available as a subscription for $60 a month. Lee said the company is on track to hit $1 million in annual recurring revenue by mid-May.

He recently hired the internet influencers who go by the name “Costco Guys” to make a video marketing his software. 

“If you’re struggling to pass your Leetcode interviews and want to get a job at a big tech company, you’ve got to take a look at Interviewcoder.co to pass your interview,” the Costco Guys say in their video. “Because Interview Coder gets five big booms! Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom! Boooooom!”

Leetcode Wizard bills itself on its website as “The #1 AI-powered coding interview cheating app” and “The perfect tool for achieving a ‘Strong Hire’ result in any coding interview and landing your dream job at any FAANG company.” Leetcode Wizard charges 49 euros ($53) a month for a “Pro” subscription. 

More than 16,000 people have used the app, and “several hundred” people have told Leetcode Wizard that they received offers thanks to the software, the company told CNBC. 

“Our product will have succeeded once we can shut it down, when leetcode interviews are a thing of the past,” De Vries said. 

Lee said he’s moving from New York to San Francisco in March to continue building Interview Coder and start working on his next company.

Kirk said he understands software engineers’ frustration with Leetcode and the tech industry. He’s had to use Leetcode numerous times throughout his career, and he was laid off by Google in 2023. He now wants to help out-of-work engineers get jobs.

But he remains worried that AI cheating will persist.

“We need to make sure they know their stuff because these tools still make mistakes,” Kirk said. 

Half of companies currently use AI in the hiring process, and 68% will by the end of 2025, according to an October survey commissioned by ResumeBuilder.com.

Lee said that if companies want to bill themselves as AI-first, they should encourage its use by candidates.

Asked if he worries about software engineers losing the trust of the tech industry, Lee paused. 

“Hmm,” he mumbled.  

“My reaction to that is any company that is slow to respond to market changes will get hurt and that’s the fault of the company,” Lee said. “If there are better tools, then it’s their fault for not resorting to the better alternative to exist. I don’t feel guilty at all for not catering to a company’s inability to adapt.”

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How Facebook Marketplace is keeping young people on the platform

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How Facebook Marketplace is keeping young people on the platform

Meta‘s Facebook’s influence remains strong globally, but younger users are logging in less. Only 32% of U.S. teens use Facebook today, down from 71% in 2014, according to a 2024 Pew Research study. However, Facebook’s resale platform Marketplace is one reason young people are on the platform.

“I only use Facebook for Marketplace,” said Mirka Arevalo, a student at Buffalo University. “I go in knowing what I want, not just casually browsing.”

Launched in 2016, Facebook Marketplace has grown into one of Meta’s biggest success stories. With 1.1 billion users across 70 countries, it competes with eBay and Craigslist, according to BusinessDasher.

“Marketplace is the flea market of the internet,” said Charles Lindsay, an associate professor of marketing at the University of Buffalo. “There’s a massive amount of consumer-to-consumer business.”

Unlike eBay or Etsy, Marketplace doesn’t charge listing fees, and local pickups help avoid shipping costs, according to Facebook’s Help Center.

“Sellers love that Marketplace has no fees,” said Jasmine Enberg, VP and Principal Analyst at eMarketer. “Introducing fees could push users elsewhere.”

Marketplace also taps into the booming resale market, projected to hit $350 billion by 2027, according to ThredUp.

“Younger buyers are drawn to affordability and sustainability,” said Yoo-Kyoung Seock, a professor at the College of Family and Consumer Sciences at the University of Georgia. “Marketplace offers both.”

A key advantage is trust; users’ Facebook profiles make transactions feel safer than on anonymous platforms like Craigslist, according to Seock.

In January 2025, eBay partnered with Facebook Marketplace, allowing select eBay listings to appear on Marketplace in the U.S., Germany, and France. Analysts project this will drive an additional $1.6 billion in sales for eBay by the end of 2025, according to Wells Fargo.

“This partnership boosts the number of buyers and sellers,” said Enberg. “It could also solve some of Marketplace’s trust issues.”

While Facebook doesn’t charge listing fees, it does take a 10% cut of sales made through its shipping service, according to Facebook’s Help Center.

Marketplace isn’t a major direct revenue source, but it keeps users engaged.

“It’s one of the least monetized parts of Facebook,” said Enberg. “But it brings in engagement, which advertisers value.”

Meta relies on ads for over 97% of its $164.5 billion revenue in 2024.

“Marketplace helps Meta prove younger users still log in,” said Enberg. “Even if they’re buying and selling instead of scrolling.”

By keeping users engaged, Marketplace plays a key role in Facebook’s long-term strategy, ensuring the platform remains relevant in a changing digital landscape.

Watch the video to learn more.

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Hinge Health to go public as soon as April, source says

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Hinge Health to go public as soon as April, source says

Hinge Health’s TrueMotion feature.

Courtesy: Hinge Health

Digital physical therapy startup Hinge Health is gearing up to file for an initial public offering, potentially as soon as next week, CNBC has learned.

Hinge Health helps patients with musculoskeletal injuries ranging from minor sprains to chronic pain recover from the comfort of their own homes. Its IPO has been a highly-anticipated exit within the battered digital health sector, which has been reeling from the aftermath of the Covid-19 pandemic.

The IPO could happen as early as April, but timelines might still change due to uncertainty around tariffs, according to a person familiar with the matter. Hinge Health, which contracts with employers, generated $390 million in revenue in 2024, had $45 million in free cash flow and hit gross margins of about 78%, the person said.

The San Francisco startup has raised more than $1 billion from investors like Tiger Global and Coatue Management. Hinge Health had a $6.2 billion valuation as of October 2021. Physical therapy is estimated to be a roughly $70 billion market by the end of the decade.

A spokesperson for Hinge Health declined to comment.

Hinge Health CEO Daniel Perez and Executive Chairman Gabriel Mecklenburg co-founded the company in 2014 after they were frustrated by their own experiences with physical rehabilitation, according to the company’s website.

Members of Hinge Health can access virtual exercise therapy and an electrical nerve stimulation device called Enso that’s designed to serve as an alternative to pain medications like opiates. The company has been using generative artificial intelligence to scale its care team in recent years.

The company competes directly with other digital health startups like Sword Health, but Hinge Health is about four times larger than is closet competitor, the person said.

Investors will be watching closely to see whether Hinge Health’s IPO serves as a positive bellwether for the sector.

Bloomberg reported Hinge Health’s IPO plans earlier on Friday.

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