Qardio co-founder Marco Peluso was a long-time investment banker at JP Morgan, but a family emergency changed all of that and led him to become an entrepreneur.
In 2011, Peluso's father had a stroke while they were on the phone together, Peluso said in a small press briefing at the Consumer Electronics show in Las Vegas.
His dad went to doctor after doctor, Peluso says, but no one could properly diagnose him. About six months later, his father could barely run, let alone move his legs.
That's when Peluso realized the importance of monitoring ECG and heart rate continuously.
"That was the spark to leave the dark world of finance," Peluso said in a small press briefing at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.
So he decided to leave his 14-year-long career as an investment banker to create a health care startup called Qardio.
Qardio's first-announced product was the QardioCore ECG reader, which retails for $449. That might sound a bit pricey, but Peluso says that's actually a fraction of the cost of traditional holter monitors.
And unlike traditional ECG monitors, which require a bunch of sticky pads and wires, QardioCore simply wraps around your chest and snaps right into place. It's very lightweight and you can wear it under your shirt throughout the day to continuously monitor your heart rate, ECG, levels of physical activity, variations in body temperature, and more.
Beyond design, the QardioCore also transmits that data wirelessly to a mobile app and gets stored on a secure cloud database. That makes it dead-simple for your physician to monitor you.
Qardio's second product, which it officially announced at CES, is a smart blood pressure and heart rate monitor. It's now accepting pre-orders for $85.
QardioArm is free of buttons, wires, and displays, and it wirelessly connects to your smartphone or tablet. The QardioArm app automatically tracks your measurements, and uploads it to a secure cloud server.
You can then decide to send that data to your family, friends, or doctor. Sharing that data with your doctor could potentially reduce the number of times you need to see your doctor in person, saving both time and money.
Given that these are medical devices intended to help diagnose health conditions, Qardio must receive approval from the Food and Drug Administration.
Qardio is currently complying with their regulations, Peluso says, and is still in the approval process.
Check out a couple of other product images below.
