Mobility doesn’t have to be an all-or-nothing proposition. Dephy is rethinking what it means to support human movement, using powered technology designed to help people keep walking, exploring and doing more of what they love. We spoke with Luke Mooney, CEO & Co-Founder of Dephy, about the inspiration behind the company’s Sidekick powered movement system, the overlooked space between independent mobility and traditional mobility aids, and how AgeTech Collaborative from AARP is helping Dephy chart its path forward.
Take me to that moment: who or what were you building for, and what did you see that made you realize this wasn't a niche problem?
My work in powered movement didn't start with aging. Dephy and the Sidekick came out of a deeper interest in how the human body actually works and how technology could work with it instead of replacing it. It started in the lab with my co-founder, Hugh Herr, but from day one, we were focused on getting it out fast: less science project, more real solution.
Early on, we were solving for the extremes, like helping athletes and high performers operate in the most demanding conditions imaginable, building for the edge of human capability.
Over time, we realized the same technology that helps someone perform at the extreme could help everyday people keep living the life they want. So, as we started applying it there, we saw how big the opportunity and need actually were. There were people who wanted to move more in their daily lives but found it harder than it used to be, for all kinds of reasons—not impossible, just harder. Walking the length of an airport, traveling with a spouse, or keeping up on a family trip to Disney.
That's the moment it stopped being niche. Ten years ago, we were looking elsewhere, but the more we learned, the clearer it became just how many people this could help. Older adults are a big part of that group, and there's an even wider community around them who want the same thing: to keep moving comfortably through the life they love.
What's one assumption about aging—something most of the industry, or most families, still believe—that your product proves wrong?
Mobility isn't a binary cliff, and the Sidekick helps prove it. Looking at the options available today shows two clear ends of a spectrum. On one side, canes and rollators help with stability, but they don't move you forward. Wheelchairs and powered chairs do the moving for you, but they limit where you can go.
What Dephy recognizes is that there's a huge middle that the category forgot: people who want to walk and who still can, and who want to keep exploring different places with varied terrain, but it just takes more out of them than they would like.
Before the Sidekick, there was almost nothing built for them because the assumption is that it's not a problem worth solving until it becomes a disability. The Sidekick is support that's there when you need it and gets out of your way when you don't. We can support your stride long before you'd ever need to replace it.
What's one specific way being part of the AgeTech Collaborative has helped your company—a connection, a pilot, a piece of feedback—and what did that lead to?
The AgeTech Collaborative has helped us in two major ways that map to our next opportunities at Dephy. The first is access to experts who are helping inform our go-to-market strategy. Our peer companies are category challengers facing the same problem: we're not selling an established thing; we're teaching people that a new one exists.
Trading notes with founders who've had to rethink how you build awareness and consideration from scratch has been invaluable, especially as we experiment with what retail could look like for us. We started direct-to-consumer, but we have ambitions well beyond that, and this lets us learn faster about how to get there.
The second advantage of being part of the Collaborative has been growing our knowledge as we build toward future Dephy medical devices. Today, we are a consumer wellness brand, but we have ambitions for a novel, reimbursable medical device down the road. That's a different world, with its own regulatory and reimbursement pathways, and we have had incredible conversations to better understand what that path actually looks like so we can build toward it deliberately.
If someone walking the HLTH USA floor only remembers one sentence about your company, what should it be?
Dephy built the first powered movement system that supports your walk right where it starts—at the ankle.
Join Luke and Dephy at HLTH USA 2026 November 15-18 in Las Vegas. Register here.
