So when Antonio Forenza was at his job as head of research and development at Rakuten Symphony, a telecom subsidiary of the Japanese conglomerate, he realized he had to do something different to manage his stress.
A few years earlier, he had lost 40 pounds with an Apple Watch that counted steps and tracked how many calories he burned, and he started to wonder if there was a comparable device that could tell him how much stress was affecting him. “40 pounds of stress I wanted to lose, and I realized today there is no wearable for that,” Forenza told Mid Breaker.
That’s when Antonio Forenza realized he had found an opportunity in the consumer health market. Leveraging his background in engineering, he resolved to build the device himself, which draws on a more than a century-old technology, the electroencephalogram (EEG), that can detect and measure electrical activity in the brain.
Although EEG has been clinically utilized to diagnose illnesses, including epilepsy and sleep disorders, it can also be used to identify psychological stress by quantifying high-frequency brain waves known as beta waves. When such rapid beta waves persist for extended periods, they can lead to fatigue, sleeplessness, and mental stress.
Antonio Forenza worked with data scientists and biomedical engineers to create Awear, a device worn behind the ear for real-time brain-wave tracking. The device’s results are sent to an app that shares details about the wearer’s mood and offers AI-driven coaching advice that helps better manage stress and build emotional resilience.
“The brain is amazing in the ability to self-adjust, and we get these mechanisms that tell us, ‘Hey, I’m not stressed,’” Forenza said. “‘Fight or flight’ is okay from time to time. It’s part of our nature. But if you keep on getting caught in the ‘fight or flight’, that’s associated with chronic stress, depression, and anxiety.”
According to Antonio Forenza, Awear enables the wearer to proactively intercept overly stressful situations before they manifest into negative health consequences. Awear was also a finalist in Startup Battlefield 200 at TechCrunch Disrupt 2025, where it emerged victorious in the health category pitch competition.
(His hometown might need the help more than anyone: After working a series of uneventful jobs at software companies, he abandoned his tech career to sell Awear in person at tiny events and markets around Columbus.) Though Stanford University’s psychiatry department is currently testing his device to diagnose confusion and disorientation in elderly patients following surgery, the consumer space remains Forenza’s primary focus — with visions of selling millions directly, as with the Oura ring or other wearables.
The company had previously announced a pre-seed funding round, supported by Hustle Fund, Niremia Collective, Techstars, and The Pitch Fund, sometime earlier this year. It will raise its seed round from investors in early 2026.
Currently, Awear is only available for purchase through an early-access program. The device is sold to early adopters — a category that already includes any number of other startup founders, that famously frayed crowd — for $195 with a free lifetime subscription to the app.
And before long, after closing its seed round, the company will take a page from devices such as Peloton and Oura and launch a Kickstarter campaign. “It’s a road that many other wearables have gone down. It offers a lot of visibility and is an inexpensive way to acquire customers,” Antonio Forenza said.
