This week’s Smart Health roundup features an NBA star’s entrance in the tech industry, fresh funding for a flexible battery maker, and a shirt that tracks your vital stats.

NBA star enters the tech scene

Carmelo Anthony, who plays forward for the New York Knicks, launched a new firm that aims to make better wearable tech available to consumers.  In partnership with his friend Stuart Goldfarb, a former executive at NBC and Bertelsmann, they created the venture capital partnership M7 Tech Partners.

According to Goldfarb, athletes have had access to wearable technology that provides performance insight, but he and Anthony noticed that the same technology is not available for the average consumers.

“We started talking about how sensor-based devices available to consumers were really primitive,” Mr. Goldfarb said.

“Sensors were bound get much better and had the ability to disrupt the whole health care system,” he added. “But for them to work well and become adopted, they really had to become lifestyle-type products. We wanted to participate in that.”

M7 aims to not only invest in companies that deal with wearable tech but also in other digital media and consumer technology companies.  M7’s first investment is for Hullabalu which makes storytelling apps for kids.  The investment is highly influenced by the fact that Anthony has a young son.  It’s first investment may not have anything to do with wearable technology, but in a statement, Anthony made it clear that they particularly focused on “companies that are involved with wearable technology and connected devices” as they see this as “huge areas for the future.”

Imprint Energy lands $6M in funding for flexible batteries

Imprint Energy secured $6 million in a round of funding led by Phoenix Venture Partners with the participation of  Flextronics Lab IX and AME Cloud Ventures.

Imprint Energy is focusing on innovating the design and performance of batteries and has come up with  ZincPoly, a thin and flexible battery, fits perfectly in the wearable tech market and the larger Internet of Things market.  The company’s innovations in rechargeable Zinc battery chemistry allowed them to develop thin, flexible, solid-state, high energy density cells with performance and features greater than commercially available and conventional batteries at present.  ZincPoly is not only thin and flexible, but it is also more customizable, non toxic, costs less to produce since the materials needed to manufacture it are readily available, and has the potential to disrupt the battery market.

No news yet as to when devices will be equipped with ZincPoly, but Imprint Energy stated that the round of funding will be used to accelerate development and production of its flexible battery.

Ambiotex takes health monitoring to the next level

At the Wearable Technologies Conference in San Francisco, mobile developer Match2blue debuted ambiotex, a prototype t-shirt for health and fitness monitoring.

Ambiotex, co-developed with Fraunhofer Institute for Integrated Circuits (IIS), is laced with sensors and a stretchable silicon band to measure vital parameters such as pulse rate, breathing, heart-rate variability (HRV), calorie consumption and physical activity in real time.  A TechUnit magnetically attached to the ambiotex so all the vital parameters taken by shirt can then be transmitted to the ambiotex app via Bluetooth Smart so the wearer can view the data in real time.  Data gathered is analyzed by the mobile app to give you an insight on how your body is functioning, if you’re not pushing yourself to its full potential, or if you’re overly stressed and need time to relax.

The ambiotex shirt comfortably fits a person and can be worn under normal clothing or by itself, and the TechUnit can be attached and detached as needed.  The shirt is machine washable even if it’s laced with sensors so you don’t need to worry about how to keep it clean.  Ambiotex is expected to launch in the market by October 2014.