The problem
Swimmers trained blind. Runners had heart-rate straps and GPS watches, but a swimmer mid-lap could not check effort without stopping — founder Hind Hobeika, a swimmer herself, built Instabeat out of that personal need.
How it works
A small waterproof pod clipped onto standard swimming goggles and projected color-coded heart-rate training zones into the swimmer’s field of view — live feedback on effort, plus lap, turn, and calorie tracking with motion detection, wireless sync, and a post-workout dashboard. The final model was 70% smaller and 50% lighter than the original.
Pain points
Training by feel, no mid-session intensity data, and coaches who could only assess effort after the swimmer climbed out of the pool.
Business model
Consumer hardware: the device was crowdfunded on Indiegogo (nearly $30,000 within days of launch in May 2013) and eventually sold directly worldwide.
Challenges
Manufacturing was, in the team’s words, “the mount Everest of hardware”: some 50 US manufacturers declined, a Chinese partner dropped Instabeat after changing project managers, money ran out in early 2016 and the team was let go. A restart with fresh capital moved HQ from Beirut to San Francisco and the product finally shipped — then COVID-19 lockdowns closed pools worldwide in 2020, sales stopped overnight with fully stocked inventory, and Hobeika shut down production and turned the page.
Funding
- Raised: US$4M from Berytech Fund II as part of its ~US$20M deployment across 13 companies (Dec 2015, via GPCA).
- Raised: US$6M in total, much of it from Berytech, funding the San Francisco restart and the worldwide launch (Stars of Science).
Latest — Jul 2019
In July 2019, after eight years of development and testing with 250 swimmers across Lebanon, the USA, and China, Instabeat was on sale worldwide as the first smart goggle add-on with real-time visual training-zone feedback (Stars of Science).