TuMeke is a company that built an AI-powered ergonomic assessment platform that empowers safety professionals to identify and mitigate ergonomic risks efficiently. TuMeke was born out of a collaboration between co-founders Riley Noland, Diwakar Ganesan, and Zach Noland. Pulse 2.0 interviewed Noland to learn more about the company.
Formation Of TuMeke
How did the idea for TuMeke come together? Noland said:
“TuMeke was born out of a collaboration between myself, Diwakar Ganesan, and Zach Noland. I’m proud to say the team we’ve built is comprised of experts in technology and ergonomics, with professional and academic backgrounds at Google and Stanford.”
“TuMeke was created to prevent job-related injuries at industrial facilities, rooted in a mission to eliminate workplace musculoskeletal injuries. Since the beginning, our goal as a company has been to help safety professionals identify and eliminate high-risk movements within their facilities. Since its conception, TuMeke has grown to become a standard tool in the US workers’ compensation insurance industry and among the world’s largest industrial firms.”
Favorite Memory
What has been Noland’s favorite memory working for the company so far? Noland shared:
“Building TuMeke has been gratifying – full of energizing tasks and challenging moments. A memory that stands out to me the most is the day we learned that our platform reduces industrial injuries by more than 60%. Knowing our tool, which we built out of a desire to protect employees and prevent job-related injuries, is making such a significant impact was immensely fulfilling. It confirmed our hard work, collaboration, and dedication were not only paying off but were also fulfilling our mission of safeguarding the workplace from musculoskeletal injuries.”
“It reminded us all why we’re doing what we do, and it galvanized our team to keep innovating, expanding, and working toward even greater success. This memory has become a benchmark of sorts for me, a reminder of the transformative potential of technology when driven by purpose.”
Core Products
What are the company’s core products and features? Noland explained:
“TuMeke’s core product is the Risk Suite, an AI ergonomic risk assessment platform that helps companies assess ergonomic risk twelve times faster than traditional techniques. Its key features include advanced computer vision capabilities for identifying movements that can lead to musculoskeletal injuries. Our advanced computer vision capabilities allow safety staff to take a video on their smartphone to reduce the identified risk of a job in minutes, enabling the risk assessment process to be completed without halting production.”
Challenges Faced
What challenges has the team faced in building the company? Noland acknowledged:
“We’ve faced several challenges while developing TuMeke’s technology. Most notable are those related to the massive volumes of data required for training computer vision algorithms to enable accurate identification and prediction. To overcome this, we dedicated efforts towards acquiring and creating an expansive and diverse dataset that replicates real-world worker movement scenarios, ensuring accurate detection and preventive suggestions.”
“Another challenge was developing an algorithm that could deliver results in near real-time without sacrificing accuracy. It was crucial to us that our system could respond rapidly to potential hazards without compromising on precision. Through a robust, iterative process of designing and testing, we refined our technology to deliver quick results while maintaining a high degree of precision.”
“Through addressing these challenges, we’ve created a reliable system capable not just of preventing workplace injuries but also of enhancing productivity by ensuring minimal disruption to work processes. We have managed to enrich our services, lending critical insights on these challenges and others that may arise in the future.”
Evolution Of TuMeke’s Technology
How has the company’s technology evolved since launching? Noland noted:
“Our technology has evolved significantly since launching, driven by a deeper understanding of use cases through rigorous product research and development and practical experience. Interaction and close collaboration with some of the world’s most innovative and sophisticated organizations have provided crucial, candid feedback, which has been instrumental in driving further development and innovation.”
Significant Milestones
What have been some of the company’s most significant milestones? Noland cited:
“Ever since TuMeke’s inception, we have dedicated ourselves to making businesses more employee-friendly, efficient, and cost-effective. This ethical approach has allowed us to play a critical role in the world of manufacturing, enabling industry titans to spotlight ergonomic safety and develop a resilient, unshakeable workforce.”
“One of our most crowning achievements occurred towards the tail-end of 2022 when we proudly unveiled the successful completion of our $2.5M in seed funding. Later, in 2023 we were also able to announce our $10 million Series A fundraising, led by Intel Capital. In tandem, we were also honored on Forbes’ 30 Under 30 list for 2024. Being named amongst such impressive industry peers in the Manufacturing & Industry category was not just an honor, but a reaffirmation of our efforts, our ethos, and our path-breaking endeavors.”
Customer Success Stories
After asking Noland about customer success stories, he highlighted:
“TuMeke’s AI-powered software also helps companies across industries, including AF Group, Chemtrade Logistics, and Sentry Insurance. Notably, last year, a prominent Fortune 500 Company was facing an issue in one of its major distribution centers. The problem was related to the substantial number of ergonomic injuries resulting from the vast variety of manual handling tasks performed by hundreds of workers. These ergonomic injuries were not just impacting the health of the workers, but also representing the largest portion of the recorded incidents at the facility.”
“The company decided to address the issue proactively by deploying our TuMeke software in the facility. The TuMeke software proved to be a massive success for the company. It was quickly adopted by all safety staff within the facility as it took just half an hour to deploy and required no prior deep ergonomics expertise. Not only did it enhance the coverage of jobs that could be assessed for injury risks, but it also facilitated more swift and proactive interventions.”
“Given the significant success, the Fortune 500 company is now considering integrating TuMeke into safety teams at dozens of its other sites.”
Funding
After asking Roland about the company’s funding information, he revealed:
“We recently announced the closure of our $10 million Series A round of fundraising, led by Intel Capital, raising our total amount of funding to over $13 million.”
Total Addressable Market
What total addressable market (TAM) size is the company pursuing? Roland assessed:
“Workplace musculoskeletal injuries are commonplace across industries, yet traditional ergonomic risk assessment processes are manual, laborious, and inefficient. An industry ripe for digital transformation, the global smart manufacturing market is expected to grow from $108.9 billion in 2023 to $241 billion, with AI and automation poised to enable new advancements.”
Differentiation From The Competition
What differentiates the company from its competition? Roland affirmed:
“The impact of AI on industries employing manual labor is at a crossroads. We’ve intentionally adopted a product development philosophy centered around keeping the human in the loop. Unlike others, we don’t rely solely on autonomous processes that make decisions and collect data without human oversight. This approach differentiates us from our competitors in two ways:
Form Factor – Unlike many safety companies that utilize closed-circuit cameras or wearable technology, our solution is provided via a mobile app and web suite. This primary form factor enables safety specialists to use our platform during routine training and inspections. It also ensures human involvement in information collection and result interpretation.
Employee Consent – Beyond compliance with industry standards of obtaining employee consent and keeping records of responses, we value anonymity in assessments. Our assessment videos are time-limited and faces are blurred, eliminating the potential for long-term surveillance.”
Future Company Goals
What are some of the company’s future company goals? Roland concluded:
“With our Series A closing, we aspire to enhance the strengths we have established and maintain our commitment to developing AI that benefits both employees and manufacturers. This financing will enable us to broaden our operations, introduce innovative features to bolster the efficiency and safety of EHS teams, and also expand our pool of engineers, ergonomists, and academics.”
