*This is one in a series of feature articles about companies that received SBIR/STTR funding and matching funds from Launch Tennessee. Companies that have received this funding will be highlighted at this year’s upcoming Innovation Week, Feb. 24-28. Mark your calendars!
Company: Arena Labs
Name and title: CEO and founder Brian Ferguson
Location: Nashville
Arena Labs, a Nashville-based startup developing tools to help doctors and nurses manage stress and improve rest, recently received funding from the Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program, plus additional matching funds from LaunchTN.
“Our unique platform, Arena Strive, provides a biometric sensor and personal performance coach to guide frontline medical teams through an 8-week journey to improve their well-being and performance,” Founder and CEO Brian Ferguson said. “We then aggregate that data to help hospitals better manage their human capital.”
The company — which Ferguson disclosed is now the world’s largest aggregator of stress and human factors data for frontline healthcare — will use the funds to invest more deeply in data analytics and insights.
“As we get more biometric data and daily insights on stress, sleep and lifestyle, turning that data into actionable insights both for our coaches but also for our hospital partners is vital,” he said.
We caught up with Ferguson to learn more about Arena Labs.
Q: How long have you been doing this work? When and where did it begin for you?
A: The company was founded in 2017, nearly 9 years ago! We were a boutique services business for 4 years until COVID. When COVID hit, since we were non-essential personnel, we could not go into hospitals to train teams. And, there was more demand than ever for the work we do — healthcare personnel were under immense stress. So, we rebuilt the company as a technology platform to deliver everything we’d built via an asynchronous, mobile experience.
Q: What makes your work special?
A: Our belief at Arena is that for a society to thrive, a small subset of people have to raise their hands to serve others: teachers, first responders, military personnel and healthcare workers. In healthcare, there’s an obsessive focus on the patient, often at the cost of the person providing care. We’re the first company to focus on the doctor and nurse and provide human performance tools, coaching and biometric insights.
Q: What makes Tennessee the right home for your company/research?
A: We moved the company here in 2021 for several deliberate reasons. We wanted to be in a thriving American city that had access to talent anchored in our mission — across healthcare, the creative arts and human performance. The energy of Nashville has been invaluable and has already brought us exceptional talent both for our technical engineering team but also keeps us exposed to innovative young companies in healthcare and data.
Q: What’s one thing you know now you wish you knew when you started?
A: The larger the societal problem you’re trying to solve, the more time it takes to build a compelling narrative and gain momentum for scalable impact.
Q: What do you listen to while you’re working?
A: I have a range of Pandora channels I put depending on what I need: focus, creativity or good vibes.
Q: Give us your top recommendations to someone new to Tennessee.
A: Get on the water! [Nashville’s] most valuable resources are the Cumberland River, Old Hickory and Percy Priest lakes. My hometown was on Lake Erie, and I lived in California and Hawaii while in the Navy. I’m working hard to get a Standup Paddle community going strong.