SuitX: Exoskeletons for Healthcare, Recreational, and Various Occupations

SuitX Primary Offerings

SuitX is a manufacturer of automated exoskeletons made to help individuals in the healthcare industry and other business sectors. It aims to help workers boost their effectiveness and efficiency in the workplace, and minimize hazards.

The company’s exoskeletons also aim to help individuals with disabilities move around and perform tasks productively. Overall, it aims to provide affordable, modular, and robotic solutions to improve users’ quality of life with continuous upgrades in the future to maintain quality and effectiveness.

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Reviewing SuitX’s Timeline

2012 – The company was founded by Homayoon Kazerooni, Minerva Pillai, Michael McKinley, and Wayne Tung.
2018 – SuitX filed several patents for its human interface device for its exoskeleton products, two of which have been granted, while another two are still active. One of the patents is still pending . The company also participated in a Series B funding round in October 2018 with Wistron Corporation as lead investor.
2021 – SuitX participated in a venture round in May 2021. The company was acquired by prosthetics, exoskeleton, and orthotic trailblazer Ottobock in November.

Founders and Key People

Wayne Tung

Wayne Tung is a Co-Founder and Chief Technology Officer of SuitX. He has been with the company since the beginning but assumed the CTO role in January of 2013. His previous experience is composed of being a full-time Graduate Student Researcher at the University of California, Berkeley.

UC Berkeley has been home to Tung for many years, as it is where he obtained his Bachelor’s degree in Mechanical Engineering and Material Science Engineering. He also graduated from the university with a master’s degree and a doctor’s degree in Mechanical Engineering.

Homayoon Kazerooni

Homayoon Kazerooni is a Co-Founder and the Chief Scientist of SuitX. He also teaches at UC Berkeley as a professor in the university’s Mechanical Engineering Department. He is also the Director of Berkely Robotics and Human Engineering Laboratory.

Aside from SuitX, he is also the Founder and Chief Executive Officer of U.S. Bionics and the Founder of Ekso Bionics. He graduated from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology with a Doctorate in Mechanical Engineering degree.

Minerva Pillai

Minerva Pillai is a Co-Founder and the Vice President of Industrial Systems at SuitX. She is also the company’s Lead Project Engineer. Aside from these, she worked at UC Berkeley as a Graduate Student Instructor in Design of Electromechanical Systems and Senior Mechatronics Design Course.

She was a Laboratory Assistant at the UC Berkeley Human Engineering Laboratory. She also worked at Berkeley Bionics as an Intern Engineer. Her educational background is composed of her obtaining bachelor’s, master’s, and doctor’s degrees in Mechanical Engineering from UC Berkeley.

Michael McKinley

Michael McKinley is a Co-Founder and Chief Operations Officer at SuitX. He was also a Postdoctoral Researcher at the company. Other than this, he worked as a Graduate Student Researcher at UC Berkeley.

The university is also where he obtained his master’s and doctor’s degree in Mechanical Engineering. His bachelor’s degree is from the University of Massachusetts Amherst.