Ekso Bionics Holdings Inc (EKSO)

[Rhetorical]

Well then it certainly helps that some of the military people who worked on TALOS (something Ekso was involved in; see their facebook and the award they gave to group members relating to TALOS) are now involved in military acquisition.

"The Trump Administration nominated U.S. Special Operations Command acquisition executive James Geurts to serve as the next assistant secretary of the Navy for research, development and acquisition."

He was later confirmed for the position. ( https://news.usni.org/2017/12/05/james-hondo-geurts-sworn-navy-acquisition-chief )

See this Q&A with him regarding his work with TALOS

"Q: Can you provide updates on the tactical assault light operator suit (TALOS) program? Do you still anticipate delivering a prototype suit this year?

A: TALOS continues to push the boundaries of how much protection you can provide to the individual operator without sacrificing their mobility. As an S&T [science and technology] project, we’ve entered into the exciting stage where each of the individual vendors will begin delivering subsystems this fall and we’ll begin integration into the first functioning prototype. The current development schedule projects demonstrating a functional TALOS MK5 prototype during the summer of 2019. The Exoskeleton subsystem is the critical path for the first article prototype combat operator suit, and it remains the most complex which has resulted in design delays.

The other TALOS subsystems — encompassing base layer, visual augmentation systems and operator interface; helmet; armor; power; and communications — continue to be refined for optimal performance and integration with the exoskeleton subsystem development. We intend to demonstrate these subsystems in a lab environment progressively by the end of 2018 (not including the exoskeleton)."

http://www.nationaldefensemagazine.org/articles/2018/2/8/interview-with-socoms-new-acquisition-executive-james-smith


My own opinion is that TALOS release will shift public views enormously and will likely spur demand for exoskeleton company stocks. I think it's demonstration will be viral and covered by major news stations. It's my understanding that Ekso worked on the chassis and some of the upper extremity robotics. I'm guessing they are still involved in these two aspects, but I don't know of any proof for this one way or another.

On the other hand, I think WarriorWeb and soft exoskeletons are a lot more important to the exoskeleton field in terms of mass adoption. Ekso has been very quiet about this since their press release in February of 2016, but my novice eye suggests that their recent patents suggest involvement in soft exoskeletons. Obviously many patents may be confidential and not usable to the company commercially outside of military sales -- totally unknowable for us to know about this.

I'm long EKSO