Member News

April 29, 2015

Ekso Bionics Holdings has wowed the world with its wearable robots, or exoskeletons, which help paralyzed people to walk and soldiers to climb mountains with crushing loads on their backs.

One thing the Richmond company hasn’t been able to do: turn a profit. Publicly traded since last year through a reverse merger, Ekso has an accumulated deficit of $71 million after a cash loss of $10.6 million in 2014 on revenue of $5.3 million.

The company and its supporters believe that’s destined to change.

Stock analyst Jeffrey Cohen, for example, calls Ekso a "jewel," predicting fourth-quarter profitability in 2018, with annual revenue by that time at $94 million and rising to $336.5 million two years later.

Cohen, of Miami-based Ladenburg Thalmann, describes Ekso as a rare find, an undervalued, still-early stage company of nearly 85 employees with rich intellectual property borne of painstaking research and development, competent management, and a product road map aimed at multi-billion markets.

"It’s a super company," Cohen said. "I think it’s pretty amazing."

New Products

This year Ekso plans to start selling the “Works,” a stripped-down exoskeleton for use lifting heavy objects and tools in industrial settings, particularly construction and ship maintenance. Cohen expects it to retail for $12,000.

Cohen also expects Ekso at some point to release a robotic body suit designed to enable older and partially disabled people to walk independently. Cohen expects a price of $50,000 to $65,000, although the company would not confirm that.

"We’ve been working on a lot of technology in the background and its finally coming to a spot where we’re starting to spiral it out," said Ekso co-founder and CTO Russ Angold.

Angold says exoskeletons are still "in the awareness phase," but industrial use alone will be faster growing and bigger for Ekso than physical rehabilitation.

"This market is huge. Just from these early targeted applications, we’re talking hundreds of thousands of skilled trades workers that could use this technology today," Angold said. He showed off the "Works" device at Ekso’s 75,000 square-foot headquarters in a historic Ford assembly plant on the waterfront in Richmond.

"There’s a lot of workers out there that are highly skilled and highly paid, and if we can increase their productivity and reduce their injuries, there’s a big value proposition there," he said.

The "Works" is designed to carry weight passively through a metal frame that is strapped over clothing and equipped with a zero-gravity arm that can hold grinders, welders, rivet busters, grip blasters, spraying devices and other moderately heavy machinery.

“It effectively becomes weightless,” Angold said as he lightly moved a 35-pound grinder in figure-eights from waist to head-height and back again.

Construction workers using such equipment inevitably have to take numerous breaks, especially when holding them above their heads. Injuries are not uncommon, especially for older workers who have knowledge that is hard to replace.

For companies, that translates into lost time on the job, lost intellectual capital, tens of billions in worker compensation claims annually, higher insurance rates and hampered abilities to bid on jobs.

Hanging alone, the frame looks somewhat like a hand-truck, with plates at the bottom for each foot and a bar protruding from the back to hold counter-balance weights.

"A lot of thought has gone into how it works and how you maintain your agility and ability while still being able to maintain the carry payloads that we put on it," Angold said. "That’s not as straightforward as one might think."

Competition is expected, nonetheless, to be intense, as multiple companies — including Raytheon, Panasonic, Honda, Daewoo and Cyberdyne — are developing some form of exoskeleton for military and industrial applications. Others are developing medical units, including Ohio-based Parker Hannifin Corp.

Berkeley Roots

Ekso was founded in 2005 after UC Berkeley’s Robotics and Human Engineering Laboratory achieved an energy efficiency breakthrough with powered exoskeletons while doing work for the U.S. military’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. UC Berkeley licensed initial technology to Ekso and remains a significant stockholder.

Ekso in 2009 licensed prototype technology to Lockheed Martin for military use, though so far that has not made much money. In January, Ekso was awarded a contract to continue Tactical Assault Light Operator Suit (TALOS) project. Last November, the company licensed intellectual property to Germany’s Otto Bock, the world’s largest maker of prosthetics.

It took until 2012 for Ekso to release its own product, the Ekso GT. The wearable bionic suit helps people with spinal cord injuries, stroke and other lower-extremity paralysis or weakness to stand and walk with a cane, crutches or a walker under the supervision of a physical therapist.

By the end of 2014, Ekso had placed 110 devices into service with 80 customers who either bought or rented them. Software and hardware improvements have continued, including the introduction of a real-time data capture program that transmits statistics and device information from walking sessions to company servers. The GT is also now able to adjust the amount of support it provides as a patient recovers.

One encouraging sign, last month a British court ruled that a gunshot victim with a spinal cord injury must receive an Ekso.

Angold says he gets tremendous satisfaction thinking of the impact the “Works” exoskeleton will have on people’s lives. Almost every month, a paralyzed person is in Ekso’s offices for their initial walk with a robotic suit.

“That’s my favorite part," Angold said. "They stand up for the first time and they’re pretty nervous about the situation, kind of unsure, and they’ll take a few steps and we’ll have them stop and kind of take it in."

At some point after their injury somebody told them they would never walk again, Angold said.

“It’s a pretty big moment, and they usually have family there, and it’s emotional.”