Four former UF swimmers are trying to raise $250,000 to produce a fitness tracker for swimmers.
Luke Torres, a 22-year-old UF industrial and systems engineering senior, helped create the company Phlex about two years ago with three of his friends: Marcin Cieslak, Harrison Gibson and Ryan Rosenbaum.
Together the former UF swimmers created a fitness tracker to strap to swimmers’ goggles, which will record data like heart rate, distance, sprint times, stroke count and type of stroke being used, Torres said.
Torres said the company needs about $250,000 to begin production, including factory tools, hardware development, app development for data recording on iOS and android devices, product design and marketing. Once manufactured, the device would sell for about $200.
“The biggest challenge is money because even though we have the knowledge of the swimming industry, we need to pay our engineers to actually develop it,” Torres said.
From April 6 to April 8, Torres represented the group of four in a national undergraduate business competition, e-Fest, in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
Phlex was selected to compete out of 160 teams from 81 schools that submitted seven-minute videos and presentations describing their business ideas, he said. Phlex’s video submission showed a swimmer- to-coach relationship and the lack of tools available to analyze a swimmer’s performance.
The competition, which featured keynote speeches from the founder of Best Buy Co. and a judge from the reality show “Shark Tank,” had $100,000, $50,000 and $25,000 prizes, but Phlex did not win any money.
Gibson, a UF alumnus and CEO of the company, said the competition was an opportunity for the team to improve their product.
“I think that we were exposed to a talented panel of judges,” the 24-year-old said. “Criticism from them can only make us grow.”
Torres said the company’s success wasn’t dependent on them winning the e-Fest competition. Phlex has raised about $20,000 from investors, and Torres said he thinks they can raise more.
“It would have accelerated the process,” he said, referencing the competition. “But at least we got great exposure.”
