Embrace Innovations

Embrace was founded in 2008 by Jane Chen, Linus Liang, Naganand Murty and Rahul Panicker. The four founders met as graduate students at Stanford University in a Design for Extreme Affordability course, where they were challenged to design an infant incubator that would cost 1% the price of traditional incubators (about $20,000 in the US).[5]

On a 2007 fact-finding trip to Nepal and India, the team realised their design would have to take into account the infrastructural challenges in developing countries, including unreliable power and limited skills of healthcare staff. An initial prototype was developed resembling a baby sleeping bag with a removable, heatable wax insert that prevented hypothermia in premature and low-birth-weight babies, which took into account the limitations of the developing country environment. [6]

With initial funding from Stanford BASES Social E-Challenge and Echoing Green, Embrace was registered as a 501(c)(3) non-profit in 2008. In 2009, the team moved to Bangalore, India to further refine their prototypes and explore their intended market. Clinical trials began in 2010.[7] The first Embrace infant warmer was delivered to Little Flower Hospital in Bangalore, India in April 2011, marking the launch of pilot programs in India. In late 2011, Embrace partnered with the American Refugee Committee and Banadir Hospital in Mogadishu, Somalia to implement the first pilot program in Africa.[8]

In January 2012, Embrace announced a new hybrid organisational structure. A separate for-profit social enterprise, Embrace Innovations, was spun out of the Embrace 501(c)(3) organisation to handle product design, manufacturing, and sales/distribution, primarily to governments and private clinics in emerging markets.[9]

The company has developed two versions of the Embrace infant warmer: Embrace Nest, and Embrace Care.[10] The infant warmers are composed of three components: an infant-sized sleeping bag or baby interface, a pouch of phase change material (PCM), and a heater. The pouch, when warmed in the heater and placed into a compartment of the sleeping bag, maintains the World Health Organisation recommended temperature of 37°C for a period of up to eight hours. The product was designed to complement skin-to-skin care.[11]

For each warmer sold, the for-profit arm pays a royalty to the nonprofit, which owns the intellectual property.[12] In turn, Embrace 501(c)(3) organisation sets up partnerships with NGOs and government entities in under-resourced, impoverished communities and distributes infant warmers for free to clinics and hospitals that have limited access to modern technology. This combined approach "allows [Embrace] to divide and conquer, to reach a broader range of demographics and areas".[1]

The for-profit structure was created in order to facilitate the manufacture and distribution of products at scale, as well as to access capital funds needed for these activities. Embrace Innovations closed a Series-A funding round in 2011, with investments from Vinod Khosla's Impact Fund and Capricorn Investment Group.[13]