spacebands raises £1.1M to catch hidden workplace injuries early
What's the deal? spacebandsDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom →, a Cardiff-based workplace hazard wearables startup, has raised £1.1 million in early VC funding, including £230,000 from British Design FundDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom →. The money will fund development of its wrist-worn devices and analytics platform, which help employers spot harmful exposure to noise and vibration before workers are injured.
What's the endgame? spacebands designs wearables that monitor exposure to hazards such as noise and hand-arm vibration, sending real-time alerts and feeding data into an online dashboard. The goal: move employers from reactive reporting to proactive risk management.
Why now? The Health and Safety Executive estimates around 12,000 workers each year suffer hearing loss caused or worsened by work. Conditions like noise-induced hearing loss and hand-arm vibration syndrome develop gradually and often go unnoticed until the damage is done.
Founders Ronan Finnegan and Harry Kimberley-Bowen started the company while flatmates during the COVID pandemic, initially selling contact-tracing wearables that flagged breaches of the two-metre distancing rule. They later pivoted into health and safety.
The traction: The devices are already deployed by some of the UK's largest safety-critical organisations, including Network RailDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom →, M Group Highways, Kier Group, and Balfour Beatty.
"Too many workers only discover the impact of noise or vibration exposure years after the damage is done," said Finnegan. "Prevention needs to happen in real time, on the person, rather than retrospectively in a report."
British Design Fund chief executive officer Damon Bonser said the team "has developed a practical, data-driven solution that helps organisations understand and manage those risks more effectively," adding that the fund was pleased to support the company's operational expansion.
The signal: The raise reflects growing investor appetite for preventive occupational health tools, where wearables turn exposure that historically went unmeasured into data employers can act on — a shift driven by both legal duty and cost of long-term claims.
Read more: British Design Fund
Image credit: NCDOTcommunications
