For the roughly two-thirds of stroke survivors who leave hospital with lasting motor impairment, the hardest part of recovery often begins after the formal rehab ends. Therapy hours taper off. Progress slows. The arm or leg that the patient is trying to retrain becomes, in clinical shorthand, a problem of neuroplasticity meeting the limits of the health system's calendar. A London-based pre-seed company called Neubond is betting that a wearable worn at home, tracking what the patient is trying to do and reflecting it back to them, can keep that recovery curve bending in the right direction.
Neubond, co-founded by Patrick Sagastegui Alva and Jumpei Kashiwakura, is developing a wearable device for stroke and neuro-injury patients that monitors movement intention and helps users visualize which muscles they are activating during rehabilitation exercises [Imperial College London]. The company describes the product as a home therapy device that reinforces the connection between nerves and muscles by providing physical feedback during daily activities [Russell Group]. The patient population is specific and large: adults recovering upper-limb motor function after ischemic or hemorrhagic stroke, along with people living with related neuro-injuries.
The standard of care today
Post-stroke motor rehabilitation in the UK and most of Western Europe currently follows a familiar arc. Acute inpatient therapy is followed by a period of outpatient or community physiotherapy and occupational therapy, typically task-specific repetitive practice, sometimes augmented by constraint-induced movement therapy or functional electrical stimulation for selected patients. NICE guidelines emphasize intensity and repetition, but in practice patients often receive far fewer therapy minutes than the evidence base recommends, and engagement at home, where most recovery actually has to happen, is uneven. Devices that have entered this space, including functional electrical stimulation cuffs and robotic gloves, have generally targeted clinic settings or required significant clinician supervision. A wearable that a patient can put on at home and use during ordinary daily routines, with feedback that does not require a therapist in the room, is a genuine gap in the current pathway.
The bet
Neubond's wedge is to start narrow. Rather than seek regulatory clearance for an active therapeutic device out of the gate, the company plans to first release a version that monitors movement intention and guides rehabilitation by helping patients visualize muscle use [Imperial College London]. That sequencing matters. A monitoring and biofeedback device faces a materially lower regulatory bar in both the UK MHRA and EU MDR frameworks than a device that delivers stimulation or claims a therapeutic outcome. It also lets the company gather real-world usage data and build clinical evidence before the harder regulatory conversation begins. The company has said it is fundraising to support clinical trials and pursue regulatory approval for the home therapy device [NIHR Imperial Biomedical Research Centre].
Why it could be big
Stroke is one of the largest sources of adult disability worldwide, and health systems across Western Europe are under sustained pressure to move rehabilitation out of expensive inpatient and outpatient settings into the home. A wearable that can quantify engagement, surface progress to clinicians remotely, and keep patients practicing on their own time fits squarely into that shift. Neubond has assembled a credible early backing stack for a UK medtech spinout: it has come through the Innovate UK ICURe commercialization program and Imperial's Venture Catalyst accelerator, and it has drawn funding from the European Commission's Horizon Europe program. The company secured a $250,000 grant round in 2024 [Leads on Trees] and has raised a reported £720,000 in total non-dilutive and pre-seed funding to date.
Pre-seed grant round (2024) | 0.25 | $M
Total funding raised to date | 0.92 | $M
(Total figure converted from the reported £720,000 at approximate current rates.)
The team
Sagastegui Alva holds a PhD in Bioengineering from Imperial College London, with published research on neural interfaces, sensory feedback, haptics, and prosthetics, including a co-authored paper on a wearable multichannel haptic device for encoding proprioception in the upper limb [Archive ouverte HAL]. Kashiwakura, the company's CTO and co-founder, previously worked as a Senior Engineer at Toyota Motor Corporation [Crunchbase], a background in hardware engineering at scale that is relatively unusual in early-stage UK medtech. The pair met through Imperial's prosthetics research environment before pivoting toward stroke rehabilitation [Neubond]. The company won first place in the Health and Wellbeing track at Imperial's 2024 Venture Catalyst Challenge [Imperial College London].
The honest counterfactual
The neurorehabilitation hardware category is not empty. Functional electrical stimulation devices, robotic exoskeletons for the upper limb, and software-only telerehab platforms have all attracted clinical attention and venture funding over the past decade, and several have struggled to demonstrate that home use translates into durable functional gains in randomized trials. Bears will note that wearable rehab devices have a long history of strong pilot data followed by harder Phase III readouts, and that a pre-seed company will need to fund a properly powered clinical study to convince the NHS or any European payer to reimburse. The bull answer, supported by the company's stated roadmap, is that Neubond is deliberately starting with a monitoring and biofeedback indication that does not require a therapeutic efficacy claim to ship [Imperial College London]. That sequencing buys time, real-world data, and a commercial foothold while the harder evidence package is built.
What to watch
The next twelve months will be about two things: the first clinical study readout, and the company's first regulatory submission for the monitoring version of the device. A seed round, likely in the £1 million to £3 million range typical for UK medtech graduating from ICURe, would be the natural next funding step to get from prototype to a CE-marked product in patients' hands. Watch for named NHS trust partnerships, any published pilot data from Imperial-affiliated stroke units, and whether the company expands its team beyond the two co-founders into clinical and regulatory hires. For a patient population that has waited a long time for at-home tools that actually fit into daily life, even an incremental win here would matter.
Pulse Raman covers biotech, digital health, and clinical AI for Startuply. Patient outcomes first, technology second.