For the past few years, Bonbouton has been making a name for itself in its research into graphene, with much of the work being done in the field of a smart insole system to help with diabetes prevention. The company was also branching out into other projects using graphene, notably graphene masks to help prevent COVID-19.

However, company founder Linh Le felt that the Bonbouton name didn’t provide an idea about what the company was about. With that in mind, Le has gone back to the company’s original name, Flextrapower.

“Even before COVID-19, we talked about rebranding,” Le noted. “Bonbouton was a name that I came up with many years ago when our focus was on graphene as a sensing platform for smart clothes with a single button (‘lovely button,’ aka ‘Bonbouton’) that could collect health information and insights. By 2017, we realized the story behind the name was confusing, especially being in a different language, so we wanted to come up with a new name that better reflected our vision and hope for the future.”

The company’s first success was its Foot Health System, whose goal is to help prevent diabetic foot amputation by detecting foot ulcers before they form. The system consists of a smart insole that connects to a patient-facing mobile app and a clinical-facing dashboard with historical data to make interventional decisions on time.

“While our smart insole system has been the focus of our company for a handful of years, it’s our graphene technology applied to different products for better health and wellbeing that differentiates us,” he added. “So, when we developed and starting selling the graphene masks, we wanted to move away from being solely a ‘diabetes company’ and move towards a health and technology company powered by graphene with a focus on remote monitoring products.”

Le said that Flextrapower describes graphene — it is the most flexible and transparent nanomaterial that powers biomedical and sensing solutions.

While the company has changed its name, its focus will remain on healthcare.

“As long as there is a need for masks, we will be continuing to produce them. We are actively looking for distribution and manufacturing partners to help scale,” Le reported. “At the same time, we’re continuing to develop the smart insole and healthcare dashboard while waiting to restart clinical trials with a few hospitals that put us on pause when the pandemic hit. We’re hopeful that COVID-19 will eventually end, but diabetes will always be a problem we hope to address.”

Aside from the smart insole and the graphene masks, Le said that Flextrapower is working on numerous projects in the smart textile for healthcare space.

“We have several graphene projects that are in the R&D stage,” said Le. “While we can’t reveal all of the fine details, we can share that we’re looking into the application of graphene into smart textiles for physical therapy use. Over the past two years and beyond, we’ve continued to improve on our core technology so the graphene-on-textiles can meet all of the requirements needed for the textile industry.

“We don’t consider ourselves as a graphene supplier company; we see our strength as applying graphene to other technologies in the real world,” Le concluded. “We’re utilizing the power of graphene to find its product-market fit, and are always open to strategic partnerships that help amplify and expand the applied-graphene market.”