Executive Summary / Key Takeaways

• Movano's FDA-cleared EvieMED Ring uniquely positions it as the only smart ring built on medical device infrastructure, creating immediate B2B opportunities in clinical trials and remote patient monitoring that wellness-only competitors cannot access without years of investment and regulatory work.
• The company's proprietary millimeter-wave RF chip technology for cuffless blood pressure and non-invasive glucose monitoring represents a potential breakthrough in continuous health monitoring, but remains unproven at scale and years from commercialization.
• Movano faces imminent existential risk with only $2 million in cash as of Q3 2025, a quarterly burn rate that would exhaust resources by Q1 2026, and a bridge loan that could result in asset seizure if the Corvex merger fails to close by March 31, 2026.
• The Corvex merger provides a $1 billion equity facility and immediate $3 million capital injection, but pivots the combined entity toward AI infrastructure, potentially sidelining the core medtech operations that represent Movano's primary differentiation and near-term revenue opportunity.

Setting the Scene: A Medical Device Company in a Wellness Market

Movano Inc., founded in Delaware in 2018, began as a sensor technology company but has evolved into a medical device manufacturer operating in the consumer wellness space—a structural mismatch that defines both its opportunity and its peril. While most smart ring competitors design wellness gadgets that dodge FDA scrutiny, Movano built its Evie Ring from the ground up to meet medical device standards, creating a regulatory moat that management correctly notes would take competitors "years and many millions of dollars" to replicate. This medical device foundation, however, comes with the punishing cost structure and capital intensity that has left the company with a $160.5 million accumulated deficit and a balance sheet that raises substantial doubt about its ability to continue as a going concern.

The smart ring market is rapidly expanding, with industry leader Oura surpassing 5.5 million rings sold and projecting $1 billion in 2025 revenue. Yet this growth has attracted nearly a dozen new entrants in the past two years, commoditizing basic wellness tracking and compressing margins for undifferentiated players. Movano sits at the opposite end of this spectrum: its FDA-cleared pulse oximetry feature and medical-grade accuracy standards create a B2B value proposition that wellness rings cannot match, but its D2C business has struggled with operational execution and capital constraints that have crippled revenue generation.

The company's place in the value chain is unusual. It manufactures hardware, develops proprietary RF sensor chips, seeks additional FDA clearances, and markets both direct-to-consumer and to enterprise healthcare partners. This vertical integration demands significant R&D investment—$5 million in the first nine months of 2025 alone, down from $9.2 million in the prior year only because the company has slashed spending to conserve cash. The result is a classic biotech-style risk/reward profile: breakthrough technology potential coupled with near-term funding risk.

Technology, Products, and Strategic Differentiation

The Medical Device Moat

Movano's core competitive advantage is its medical device infrastructure. The EvieMED Ring received FDA 510(k) clearance for pulse oximetry in November 2024, with clinical trial data showing SpO2 accuracy within 2.46% root mean square error—well under the FDA's 3.5% guidance and superior to two commercially available hospital-grade pulse oximeters, one of which failed to meet the standard in head-to-head testing. This matters because it transforms the ring from a consumer gadget into a clinical tool that pharmaceutical companies, clinical research organizations, and healthcare payers can trust for trial data and remote patient monitoring.

The hardware architecture is identical between the wellness Evie Ring and medical EvieMED Ring, with differentiation coming through software, labeling, and data handling protocols. This creates manufacturing leverage: the same production line can serve both markets, but the B2B version commands premium pricing and recurring revenue potential. Management estimates the clinical trials market for FDA-cleared wearables at $5 billion annually, with EvieMED positioned to improve compliance, reduce costs, and accelerate enrollment compared to traditional monitoring methods. The chronic disease management opportunity across cardiovascular, metabolic, obesity, and pulmonary patients represents an additional $20 billion annual market.

Proprietary RF Technology: The Long-Term Bet

Movano's most significant R&D investment is its 4 x 6.7 millimeter System-on-a-Chip utilizing millimeter-wave radio frequency and AI technology. This proprietary approach aims to enable cuffless blood pressure monitoring and non-invasive continuous glucose monitoring—two holy grail metrics that would dramatically expand the addressable market. An October 2023 clinical study achieved a mean absolute difference of 5.9 mmHg for blood pressure, below the FDA-recognized 7 mmHg standard for wearable devices and serving as the catalyst for a $3 million strategic seed investment from a Tier 1 global medical device company.

The technology's advantage lies in its ability to capture high-fidelity data beyond what traditional optical sensors can achieve. The seventh clinical trial completed in November 2024 used an updated device with 12 additional mmWave antennas for enhanced data collection while achieving a slimmer design. Management expresses confidence in matching or exceeding prior accuracy results and aims for market entry within "the next couple of years." This timeline is critical: if successful, Movano would be first-to-market with a ring-based non-invasive glucose monitor, creating a multi-year lead over competitors. However, the technology remains unproven at commercial scale, and the path to FDA clearance for glucose monitoring is substantially more complex than pulse oximetry.

D2C Execution Challenges

The direct-to-consumer Evie Ring launched in November 2023 with strong initial demand, generating over $1 million in Black Friday sales and shipping 5,305 rings in Q1 2024 for $852,000 in revenue. However, capital constraints forced a pause in order intake by mid-February 2024, creating a delivery backlog that led to customer cancellations and refunds. The company organically built an 8,000-person waitlist, but operational inefficiencies damaged brand momentum.

The September 2024 relaunch benefited from improved production yields, logistics, and customer service, with management achieving a 90%-plus customer approval score. The Android app launch by holiday 2024 addressed a major platform gap, and a revised 60-day return policy reduced purchase friction. Yet Q3 2025 revenue of just $80,000—down from $902,000 in the prior-year period—demonstrates that D2C remains a negligible contributor. The turnkey manufacturing agreement with Movano's production partner is expected to free working capital by shifting raw material ownership to the manufacturer, but this only helps if there is demand to fulfill.

Financial Performance & Segment Dynamics

Movano's financial results tell a story of deliberate hibernation in the face of capital exhaustion. Nine-month revenue for 2025 collapsed to $389,000 from $902,000 in 2024, a 57% decline management attributes to "reduced marketing efforts"—a euphemism for the company conserving cash by ceasing customer acquisition. The cost structure reflects this retrenchment: R&D spending fell 46% to $5 million, and SG&A dropped 41% to $5.2 million, driving an improvement in operating loss from $19.5 million to $11.1 million. While the narrowing loss appears positive, it results from starving the business of growth investment rather than operational leverage.

Gross margin of negative 234.2% reveals a fundamental problem: cost of revenue of $1.3 million exceeded revenue of $389,000, meaning each sale destroyed value. This reflects fixed manufacturing costs spread over minimal volume and likely inventory write-downs. Until Movano achieves production scale—whether through D2C or B2B channels—this dynamic will persist, consuming cash with each unit produced.

The balance sheet is dire. With $2 million in cash and $9 million used in operations during the first nine months of 2025, the company has approximately two months of runway at current burn rates. The $1.5 million bridge loan, extended to March 31, 2026, carries an effective interest rate of 111.64% and is secured by the company's intellectual property. If the Corvex merger fails to close by the maturity date, Movano's IP and assets transfer to the lender, wiping out equity value. This is not a going concern warning—it is a countdown clock.

Outlook, Management Guidance, and Execution Risk

Management's guidance is built on two pillars: the Corvex merger and B2B commercialization of EvieMED. The merger, expected to close in Q1 2026, would provide access to a $1 billion equity facility, though the company cannot draw on it until a Form S-1 registration statement is declared effective. The $3 million Series A financing completed in November 2025 buys time, covering approximately three months of burn. Post-merger, Movano Health plans to "resume marketing" its medical device operations, implying that medtech is being sidelined until the transaction closes.

For EvieMED, management anticipates pilot programs with global pharmaceutical companies, CROs, and large healthcare payers beginning in early 2025. The company is preparing back-end operations to meet B2B requirements, including API frameworks and medical-grade data handling. The clinical trials market offers a near-term revenue opportunity that is less capital-intensive than D2C, with higher per-unit pricing and recurring revenue potential. However, the timeline is compressed: pilots must convert to contracts quickly enough to fund operations before the bridge loan matures.

The D2C business is expected to remain in maintenance mode, with "judicious" marketing spend focused on organic growth through social media and influencer partnerships. The Heidi D'Amelio brand partnership aims to drive awareness without the cash burn of paid advertising. Management's guidance assumes the Android app launch and 60-day return policy will support holiday 2024 sales, but Q3 2025 results show minimal impact.

Risks and Asymmetries

The merger with Corvex introduces profound uncertainty. While the $1 billion equity facility appears to solve the capital constraint, the combined entity will focus on "secure AI infrastructure and high-performance inference," not medical devices. This strategic pivot risks diverting resources from EvieMED commercialization and RF technology development, effectively abandoning the core differentiators that justify Movano's existence. The "no shop" covenant and $500,000 termination fee prevent alternative transactions, locking the company into a single path.

Product development risk remains extreme. The cuffless blood pressure and glucose monitoring programs have consumed the vast majority of R&D investment but remain years from FDA clearance and commercial launch. If clinical trials fail to replicate prior accuracy results or if the FDA sets more stringent standards, the technology's value could be impaired. The October 2023 blood pressure study results were promising, but a single trial does not validate a platform.

Competitive risk is accelerating. Oura's dominant market position and $1 billion revenue scale create pricing power and brand recognition that Movano cannot match. If Oura or other wellness players decide to pursue FDA clearances, they could erode Movano's medical device moat, though this would indeed require years and millions in investment. More immediately, if B2B customers pilot EvieMED but conclude the data is not sufficiently differentiated from wrist-worn alternatives, adoption could stall.

The going concern risk is the most immediate threat. Even if the Corvex merger closes, the combined company must choose between funding AI infrastructure or medtech operations. If medtech is deprioritized, Movano's assets could be stranded within a larger entity that lacks the focus to commercialize them. If the merger fails, the bridge loan's 111.64% effective interest rate and IP collateral provision make bankruptcy or asset seizure nearly certain.

Valuation Context

Trading at $8.63 per share with a market capitalization of $7.2 million, Movano is priced as a distressed asset rather than a going concern. The enterprise value of $6.7 million reflects minimal net debt after accounting for the bridge loan. With TTM revenue of $1.01 million, the stock trades at 7.1 times sales—a multiple that would be reasonable for a high-growth health tech company but is meaningless given negative gross margins and collapsing revenue.

The relevant valuation metrics are liquidity and burn rate. With $2 million in cash and quarterly operating cash burn of $1.6 million, Movano has approximately 1.2 quarters of runway. The $3 million Series A financing extends this to roughly 3 quarters, but only if the company maintains its reduced spending levels. The $1 billion equity facility is inaccessible until post-merger SEC filings are complete, creating a potential timing gap.

Comparing Movano to peers is instructive. Dexcom (DXCM) trades at 6.0 times sales with 22% revenue growth and 20% operating margins. Abbott (ABT) trades at 4.9 times sales with 7.5% growth and 19% operating margins. Garmin (GRMN) trades at 5.9 times sales with 12% growth and 26% operating margins. Movano's 7.1 times sales multiple appears to discount successful B2B commercialization, yet the company lacks any of the growth, profitability, or scale that justify such a premium. The valuation is essentially a call option on the Corvex merger closing and the combined entity retaining focus on medtech.

Conclusion

Movano represents a high-stakes binary outcome for investors. The company's FDA-cleared EvieMED Ring and proprietary RF sensor technology create genuine competitive moats in markets worth billions, but these assets are stranded inside a balance sheet that will not survive beyond March 2026 without the Corvex merger. The merger provides capital but threatens strategic dilution, while the bridge loan's punitive terms make failure catastrophic.

The investment thesis hinges on two variables: whether the combined Corvex-Movano entity will prioritize and fund B2B medical device commercialization, and whether Movano's RF technology can achieve FDA clearance for blood pressure and glucose monitoring before competitors close the gap. If both conditions break favorably, the current valuation could appear trivial in hindsight. If either fails, equity value likely approaches zero. For investors, this is not a story of gradual improvement but of imminent resolution—one way or another—by Q1 2026.