Good Boost is aiming to transform swimming pools and community spaces into therapeutic places for rehabilitation, wellbeing, and healthy ageing. The company's digital aqua paddles make it possible to quantify human movement in water, aiding patient recovery and athlete conditioning programmes.

The technology gives patients and physiotherapists the ability to analyse and evaluate aquatic rehabilitation interventions accurately for the first time.

Additionally, it utilises public pools to create community health and wellbeing services, which is particularly important for supporting populations at highest risk of health inequalities. Good Boost's mission being to ensure underserved populations have greater access to health, wellbeing and rehabilitation services.

The company already works with NHS Sutton, NHS King's College, North Lincolnshire Council, Liverpool City Council, Newcastle-under-Lyme Council, Royal Borough of Kingston upon Thames, and Nuffield Health.

Ben Wilkins, co-founder and chief executive, said: 'Pain and joint conditions, collectively known as musculoskeletal conditions, affect 20m people in the UK and 1.7bn people globally. Many of these disorders can be effectively treated and managed through water-based therapeutic interventions. However, until now, we have been unable to measure movement in water to assess the power, speed or range of movement with any accuracy. We're delighted to say Good Boost has cracked that engineering challenge.'

The latest funding round will support the company's growth and work within public swimming pools, leisure centres and gym settings, as well as deployment into more specialist hydrotherapy pools and athlete recovery training pools. It will also be used for further research and development, and the delivery and growth of services and programmes.

Damon Bonser, chief executive of British Design Fund, added: 'Spotting and understanding a problem and being led by end users to engineer an effective solution, is at the heart of Good Boost's technology. The team are all experts in their field and the innovative technology they have developed has significant potential to support rehabilitation on a global scale. We look forward to working closely with the company as it now seeks to scale.'