Strolll’s AR Glasses Rehabilitate Neurological Conditions
In 2018, Tom Finn was helping to care for his Dad, Nigel, who was experiencing increased mobility impairment with Parkinson’s-like symptoms as a result of vascular dementia.
“After attending an physio appointment with my Dad and seeing the difference that placing coloured lines on the floor for him to step over had in helping him to walk, I was inspired to understand how these visual cues could be further utilised in treatment with the support of technology,” Tom explains.
Tom realised that augmented reality (AR) glasses could allow him to use those cues wherever he wanted, whenever he wanted and developed the technology with Co-Founder Rupert Barksfield. This led them to found the company Strolll, which works with wearable AR glasses from companies like Microsoft and Magic Leap, providing access to gait training and rehabilitation exercises.
AR glasses offer healthcare patients motivating exercises
The gait training primarily uses multi-sensory cues – visual and audio – overlaid onto the user’s real-world environment and personalised to the individual. This cueing module helps people with Parkinson's by forcing the brain to divert from our human autopilot, which controls movements like walking and is often impaired by the disease, to more goal or attention-orientated movement that is often unaffected. This can result in quite a dramatic and immediate improvement in walking, posture and balance.
“The neuro-rehabilitation exercise module features games for improving functional mobility like gait, balance and reaching, engaging patients to increase their rehabilitation time with fun, motivating exercise using AR glasses instead of a sheet of paper with stretches and exercise diagrams,” Tom explains. “The software and AR glasses are prescribed by therapists to patients for either one-to-one clinical sessions or at home for daily exercises, enabling healthcare providers to provide seven-times more rehabilitation with two-thirds less staff time. Patients benefit from participating in programmes from the comfort of their own home.”
Healthcare professionals can review data from the sessions and adapt various exercises without them needing to visit the hospital or clinic. This positive reception led to strong company growth for Strolll.
“Shortly after developing a minimum viable product in our early stages, we were one of 30 companies selected from thousands of applicants to receive a US$200,000 grant from Magic Leap’s Independent Creator Program,” Tom continues.
Co-founder Jorgen Ellis was inspired to join the company in 2020 as CEO, as his grandfather had Parkinson’s disease and he saw huge potential in Strolll.
“He’s led our growth via further grants, seed funding, regulatory approval, scientific partnerships with institutions including Vrije University in Amsterdam and Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust, and major commercial contracts,” Tom shares. “To date, the company has raised US$4m in equity funding and about US$6m in grants, which has enabled us to grow our team to 26 people, win our first NHS contracts, register with the FDA to open up sales to the US market and publish key clinical evidence. We started generating revenue in 2023 and this has already grown by 500% in 2024.”
Cleveland Clinic has given Strolll an exclusive licence for relevant software
Tom feels that it is incredibly important to surround yourself with people who are experts in their field - something which has helped Tom on his career journey.
“Bringing in Jorgen to set the vision, strategy and drive execution as an experienced founder has allowed me to spend more time working with the Parkinson’s community and developing our creative assets and marketing, which is my background and skillset,” he says. “Appointing the right external advisers is crucial in this respect. We have worked closely with Clare Auty, partner at law firm Browne Jacobson, to create legal frameworks for some of our partnerships and a standard NHS contract that has allowed us to expand our work with various trusts, contributing to much of our revenue so far.”
In September, Stroll took its first major steps into the US market by completing a US$3m collaboration with Cleveland Clinic, which has given Strolll an exclusive licence for Cleveland Clinic IP and relevant software.
“Cleveland Clinic will become a shareholder in Strolll, while we’ve leased office space and set up our US HQ on the firm’s main campus in Cleveland, Ohio,” Tom explains. “Our objective is to become the most-used rehab software in the world. Our goal is to get to seven million minutes of rehab in a week by NYE 2029.”
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