I agree, emotion shouldn't be a large consideration. Furthermore, in terms of a larger picture, Kieth Fitzgerald recommend that only 2% of peoples portfolios be comprised of penny stocks.
I worry that although Ekso Bionics has the best technology in my opinion, they will be crushed by larger competitors who already spend millions of dollars on lobbying once they prove to be lucrative. It's not always the best technology that succeeds, simply what sells the best.
I've been following Ekso since 2014. My first impression was that they were inferior to the other exoskeletons on the market based on cost. I also thought using a cellular network was far inferior to Wi-FI in order to transmit data, a route many new competitors have decided to go. My opinions have since changed, and I think the feedback data is irreplaceable. I'm not currently dissuaded by the cost either, because it's meant to be purchased by a hospital/rehab center - not an individual.
I largely bought their stock because I thought the prospects Ekso Bionics has for the military market will be larger than the healthcare sector, at least short term. Regarding this, Ekso Bionics has received many DARPA contracts which I consider to be a very big deal. I think it is largely based around their efficiency. Whatever the military is designing, they want it to move around for as long as possible with as little power as needed. Ekso Bionics will have the most experience at doing this to come.
This is old, but read this about Ekso's efficiency:
"The technology was developed and commercialized with the help of the NIST Advanced Technology Program and Small Technology Transfer (STTR) awards. These important programs are federal grant funds deployed to early stage companies or small businesses to give them working capital to develop something innovative that is usually too high risk for the private sector equity markets. Ekso had four SBIR/STTRs, three from the National Science Foundation and one from DARPA.
These grants allowed the company to develop and augment the core technology to take the company into the medical market. The core technology was based on “an innovation around power,” Nate Harding, co-founder and Chief Project Officer of Ekso tells me. He continues:
“We were looking at soldiers who carry heavy loads for long periods of time in uncertain conditions. We looked at how difficult it was for load carriage exoskeletons at that time to carry more than just their own power supply. We decided what was really needed was an exoskeleton architecture that distributed weight down to the ground without consuming any power to do so. That was novel. It meant that power could be used for other things, like helping a soldier walk, rather than holding up the load. Our first prototype of that technology consumed three orders of magnitude less power than the system before it.That innovation built our reputation and gave us the opportunity to help people walk who couldn’t.”"
The single, biggest thing I'm excited about is the TALOS suit. It's being built by the same people who made the suit for the movie (Legacy Effects). So it's certain to look bad-ass, and I think it will blow everyone away. As Obama said: "We're building Iron Man":
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Hopefully they will be able to help build devices for more than just SOCOM.
I know that the U.S. Army recently bought an Exoskeleton Simulator:
“By directly modeling the interaction between a human user and the exoskeleton, our simulator will help to identify potential injury mechanisms and issues before any large-scale deployment of the device – ultimately reducing injuries while saving the Army time and money,” stated Jorgen Pedersen, president and CEO for RE2.
RE2 will partner with the Human Engineering Research Laboratories at the University of Pittsburgh, faculty at Stanford University and experts at Ekso Bionics to develop the simulator."
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