Hardware Accelerator Team Spotlight: Looē

#HardwareAccelerator19 Team, Looē, is focused on bringing well-established milk pasteurization techniques into the home. Team members Kelly Hulse, Daniel Paredes, David Reyes, Paul Reyes, Miguel Arroyo, and Sarah Reyes are using their own experiences and research to help mothers and caregivers in need of this innovation.

What problem do you solve for the market?

Under certain conditions, the Academy of Breastfeeding Medicine recommends home-pasteurization of pumped breast milk. Currently, there is no easy solution for doing so, with only stovetop directions available to women, which is time consuming and difficult to do properly. Our product solves this problem by bringing well established milk pasteurization techniques into the home.

Who is your customer?

Our customers are mothers and other caregivers in need of home-pasteurized breast milk. In particular, those who share pumped breast milk informally. This product can also be beneficial to others, including those with Candida albicans infection or women who have high lipase.

What is your innovation or solution?

Acountertop breast milk pasteurizer.

How did you come up with this idea?

I [Sarah Reyes] am a breast milk researcher. For my doctoral research, I compared the bacterial communities of breast milk pumped under real-life conditions to those in milk collected aseptically. I am also a mother of 3 and found myself needing to home-pasteurize pumped breast milk with no easy solution. We’re developing a product I wish I would have had when I was in need.

What has been the biggest surprise? What has been the most eye-opening experience so far?

I’ve been surprised most by how quickly this project has progressed from an off-hand comment to one of Rev’s Entrepreneurs-in-Residence to testing our first prototype. My most eye-opening experience so far is the amount of engineering a simple product like ours needs to work properly!