Adam Crofts has stepped away from Prevayl, the wearable tech startup that he co-founded with serial entrepreneur David Newns.
Crofts was a former personal trainer while Newns was one of the UK’s youngest-ever FTSE executives with two exits already under his belt when they came together to launch Prevayl in 2019.
The startup aimed to take wearable health technology to new heights by connecting sports clothing capable of delivering biometric data to its users.
Three years ago Stonebridge invested £7.5m and England footballer Declan Rice was one of a number of athletes to endorse the sportswear brand.
Tennis player Jodie Burrage and England rugby union star Freddie Steward joined Rice in being unveiled as ‘Prevayl Pros’.
At its height Prevayl employed 40 staff and there was ambitious talk of becoming a unicorn.
Although the company secured a number of patents for its technology it struggled to gain any traction in the fiercely competitive world of wearable tech.
Earlier this month rumours began to circulate that staff had been told not to come into work while crunch talks were held to discuss Prevayl’s future.
The result is several staff have been made redundant – leaving a core team of just ‘three or four’ – while Crofts has also left the business.
Newns told BusinessCloud that one arm of the business – Prevayl Ltd – will go into administration while the remaining staff will focus on Prevayl Innovations.
He said: “Rather than rolling out our wearable technology we’re allowing other companies to use our patents and technology under licence to do it themselves.
“It’s very difficult for a small wearable tech firm to gain any traction. It’s expensive to launch your products against the likes of Apple. We see our future as an enabler rather than a competitor.
“We’re now monetarising all the technology we’ve developed over the years and we have nearly 200 patents.
“We were really good at developing innovative tech but we weren’t good at launching wearable tech products in a congested market.
“The business model was wrong. The idea of creating your own wearable tech products was wrong.”
David Newns, chairman, Prevayl
Crofts confirmed to BusinessCloud that he’d left Prevayl.
He said: “We had some amazing projects and clients but the reality is the timeline from inception to getting a product out is so long. It’s hard for a startup.
“We thought we could get there faster by utilising AI while we were building up hundreds of patents. We’re proud of our achievements.
“The decision was taken by the board to concentrate on the IP side of the business. The £7.5m investment raise was used to build the IP portfolio.
“I’m moving on after an amazing six years. I’ve given everything to it and we’ve learnt a hell of a lot.”
Daniel Conway, a software architect at Prevayl, took to LinkedIn to say he was looking for a new role.
“Over the last four years Prevayl has gone from R&D to launching a fitness app and clothing range, to developing an automated physical demands assessment solution to building healthcare AI models,” he said.
“There have been twists and turns, pivots-a-plenty. Each time a new challenge and every time accepted, completed.
“Now my time at Prevayl has come to an end and I need some new challenges so if anyone knows anyone in need of a software architect…”
The latest events are a far cry from Prevayl’s launch in 2019 when Crofts stated his ambition to become a unicorn and announced partnerships with Vodafone and the Graphene Engineering Innovation Centre.
Speaking at the time Crofts said the company’s unique technology platform weaved graphene into its smart clothes to provide more data on the human body’s performance than any other platform in the world.
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Prevayl’s garments contained ‘invisible’ tech which connected them to an app which monitored performance and recovery.
The sensors were connected by invisible stainless steel threads, surrounded by a yarn that expanded with heat to keep them close to the body.
Commenting on their £7.5m investment in 2021, Stonebridge’s managing partner James Cox said: “What the company has created over the last 24 months is quite amazing and sits right in the sweet spot of what we believe consumers want.
“The founders are world class and well on the way to disrupting another large global market and were delighted that we can be part of that journey with them.
“Prevayl is the perfect example of the type of company which we love to back.”
- Contact Chris Maguire here