Hermia Leung, strategy and operations manager at Kokoon Technology, explains why the business should win the Startup of the Year category of the Guardian Small Business Showcase competition:
At Kokoon Technology, we are addressing the common challenge that most adults will face at some point in their lives, achieving quality sleep. By combining audio and brain-sensing technology within an ergonomic design, we created the Kokoon headphones and accompanying mobile app as a natural way for users to fall asleep.
Kokoon achieved a number of large milestones in the past year. Kokoon were selected to join the world’s leading hardware accelerator program, HAX, based in Shenzhen, China to work with hardware experts and leading factories. At its conclusion, we raised $1.93m via crowdfunding platform Kickstarter, becoming one of the largest campaigns from a UK company ever with the help of approximately 8,500 supporters. Our campaign was widely featured in a number of major global publications including Wired, VentureBeat and the Daily Mail.
Our Kickstarter success allowed us to develop all product design and technology in the UK, and we have selected and signed with a reputable manufacturer in China as our partner. We have grown the team from three to 11 based in our own offices in south-west London. We have also forged significant partnerships with academic institutions in the UK in order to access leading, cutting-edge sleep science expertise and knowledge. We have entered discussions with several major retailers in the UK and US, and launched a new social media plan in anticipation of our product launch in 2016. We look forward to many more milestones for Kokoon in 2016.
All entries which meet the competition criteria are published and our judging panel select a shortlist of the top three for each category. Winners are announced at an awards ceremony in summer 2016.
