You’ve heard of car airbags that deploy in milliseconds to protect passengers. How about an airbag for your knee?

That’s what former basketball prospect Kylin Shaw is working on with his startup, Hippopotamus exoskeleton — a “knee brace” that measures the strain on the knee joint and inflates around the knee to protect it from serious injuries like ACL and MCL tears. The sleeve inflates in 30 milliseconds, which the company says is faster than the 60 milliseconds it takes for ACL tears.

“I myself have loved basketball since I was six years old and for the next decade it became my whole life,” Shaw told TechCrunch.

“I dedicated myself to intensive training… But at age 17, while preparing for a professional basketball career and NCAA tryouts, I heard a nauseating sound from my knee as I landed after a dunk,” he said.

The injury ended Shaw’s sporting career prospects, but it gave him the idea of ​​combining AI-driven sensors and a “knee bag”. He left the London School of Economics to develop it.

Hippos said the brace uses predictive AI to detect risky movements in real time and deploys airbags around the knee, which could save athletes thousands of dollars in medical costs.

Shaw and his co-founder Bhavy Metakar (CTO) initially launched Hippos by investing $1,000 of their savings to develop a prototype and generate initial pre-orders from clinics and athletes. The startup has now raised a $642,000 pre-seed round from investors Possible Ventures and Silicon Roundabout Ventures.

Shaw told Techcrunch that the company has already secured “over six figures in pre-orders” and will use the new funding to further develop the product and reach a full launch in about three months.

He said the eventual unit would cost around $129 and come with a $29/month to $99/month subscription plan covering AI-based insights, small air canisters and tracking of training.

The startup has conducted trials with British soccer clubs as well as star athletes, such as world ski champion Alex Schlopy of the U.S. Ski Team. In a statement, Schlopy said: “I’m impressed with the preventive feature and it’s so light and comfortable! This corset gives me a feeling of psychological security.

Beyond elite athletes, Shaw said the product could be used to prevent injuries to anyone else, such as people working in construction or the elderly.

Hippos might just push an open door. While approximately 150,000 ACL injuries are reported in the United States each year, and 8.6 million globally In adults, these statistics do not include injuries in children. Additionally, most healthcare solutions focus on rehabilitation rather than prevention.

Additionally, existing companies specializing in joint protection in sports and rehabilitation focus on traditional support devices or post-injury support.

Brands present in this space include Enovis Don Joy (orthopedic devices and supports), ExoKinetics’ Zeen (devices mainly intended for rehabilitation), and shock doctor (sports orthotics and protective equipment for injury management). None of these solutions offer predictive or reactive technology like the Hippos airbag does.

Huggingface co-founder and CSO Thomas Wolf also participated in the round; Wayve co-founder Amar Shah and Dr James Brown, lead sports medicine physician at UK Athletics.