See how smart this lighter is: It could help you quit smoking

It bills itself as the world's first internet connected lighter that tracks smoking.

Many people who are trying to quit smoking while reducing find it difficult to keep on pace to losing weight. This startup named ‘Quitbit’, helps people on the right track by keeping them aware of their habits. In that sense, it acts similar to a scale for people trying to lose weight.

Founded by Ata Ghofrani and Takuji Nakano, Quitbit tries to improve the way people change their behaviors using connected devices, big data, and predictive analytics. The first market they are tackling is smoking, because it's a space they’re very passionate about.

According to Ata, he and Takuji first got the idea behind Quitbit while they were trying to quit smoking together in college. They were frustrated with existed solutions in the marketplace to track smoking because they all required manual data entry. They quickly hacked together some prototypes of lighters that can be used to track smoking and found them useful. After they graduated, they decided to share the product with other smokers with a hope that it could help them change.

“Tracking health behaviors is not new to the connected device space, but we are the only company who is taking that approach and applying it to a massive worldwide problem - smoking. Additionally, we are among the few health companies who are actively tracking ‘bad’ data in a sense. We track the amount of cigarettes you smoke and try to help users reduce, while most activity trackers (Jawbone - Up, Misfit Shine, etc..) are tracking positive behaviors like steps taken during the day and are trying to increase that amount.”

The founders claim to have made the world's first internet connected lighter that tracks smoking. Quitbit, they say, will motivate users to change their behaviors by keeping them aware of their habits and keeping them on pace to reach their goals.

How it works

Quitbit tracks every cigarette smoked, and keeps users motivated to reach their goals by showing them how much and exactly when they are smoking throughout the day. It also pairs with a mobile phone app that lets users see all their smoking data over time and most importantly customize how Quitbit works. Users can set reduction plans or even limit how and when Quitbit will light cigarettes (e.g. Quitbit will only light 1 cigarette every hour or 10 a day).

According to Ata, Singapore is the single largest country they export Quitbit to with 7% of total preorders from their Kickstarter campaign going to customers in Singapore followed by South Korea with 1.7%.

The founders

Ata Ghofrani, 26, has worked in Medical Devices and as a regulatory consultant at a biotech startups prior to going to graduate school at Brown University to study Innovation Management, where he met Takuji Nakano. He has always been interested by technology at the intersection of health and technology as a way to improve the human condition.

In 2010, he graduated from University of California Davis with B.S. in Biomedical Engineering and in 2013, he graduated MSc in Innovation Mgmt and Entrepreneurship from Brown University.

Takuji Nakano, 30 , is currently a co-founder and CTO of Quitbit where he is responsible for developing and executing the product vision.

Kuji is from Boston, but he has also lived in Eugene OR, Santa Cruz CA, Memphis TN, St Louis MO, and Providence RI. After being under graduated, he joined Zeo, a startup which created products that help consumers measure and manage their sleep. Over the course of six years, his responsibilities evolved widely and frequently - some days he was designing circuits, other days he was concocting synthetic sweat. His primary role was to manage all things related to manufacturing and to ensure quality product was received on time from the factories in China.

Outside of his professional life, he enjoys snowboarding, cycling, ultimate Frisbee, traveling, building/modifying anything, and socializing.

In 2006, Kuji graduated from University of Massachusetts Dartmouth with B.S. in Computer Engineering and in 2013 he graduated from Brown University with MSc in Innovation Management and Entrepreneurship. 

The funding

According to Ata, two startup accelerators helped them along the way when building Quitbit. The first is Betaspring, a local providence accelerator that they attended after they graduated college. They then moved to Shenzhen, China to join the 4th cohort of Haxlr8r, billed as the world's premier hardware only accelerator.

After which, the founders decided to do crowdfunding for Quitbit on Kickstarter, where they were able to clear their goal of 50,000 dollars with over 600 people pre-ordering Quitbit.

Quitbit’s major investors which include Haxlr8r, Delta Dental of RI, Betaspring, Kickstarter helped them reach a total funding of $200,000.

Moving forward, Ata shares that they are planning to work with major retailers in the US who like to expand Quitbit's reach pharmacy and big box retail shelves. They also hope to partner up with international distributors as well. Ata also said that they will be putting together a larger seed round to cover the upfront costs of engaging with retailers at a much sooner pace. 

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COMPANY PROFILE

Name of the Company: Quitbit
Founders: Ata Ghofrani and Takuji Nakano
Website: https://quitbitlighter.com/
Total Funding at hand: $200,000
Major Investors: Haxlr8r - $25k; Delta Dental of RI - $100k; Betaspring - $20k; Kickstarter - $55k
Start of Operation: May 2013  

For startups wanting to be featured, send your message to Lee Anne Babierra at research@charltonmediamail.com