Instabeat, the heart rate monitor for swimmers, has secured a Series A round of investment from Wamda Capital, Jabbar Internet Group, and angel investors including Georges Harik, to accelerate its growth and bring its first product to market.

The Beirut-based startup, which was recently named one of Forbes’ Hottest Global Startups of 2013, is the first waterproof monitor that tracks, stores, and displays information about a swimmer’s heart rate in real-time, to help swimmers optimize their performance.

After securing a seed investment round of $100,000 USD from Berytech, an incubator in Lebanon, and raising $75,000 USD on Indiegogo, Instabeat will now leverage its Series A investment to enter mass production and serve an already loyal customer base with its pioneering product in markets around the globe.

As wearable devices become an increasingly popular means of communicating and quantifying personal data, Instabeat, one of the only waterproof devices designed to serve swimmers, is positioned to become a global leader. With a design that allows users to upload personal data to a computer via a USB port, it offers swimmers an experience as comprehensive as any quantifying device on the market.

“Various existing wearable devices can track your movement throughout the day, but not while you're in the water. As one of the only ones that is waterproof, we are the missing piece in the puzzle,” said Hind Hobeika, founder and CEO of Instabeat.

With the assistance of Wamda Capital and Jabbar Internet Group, Instabeat will sell to both regional and global markets, with future models addressing activities beyond swimming, she added.

Habib Haddad, CEO of Wamda and partner at Wamda Capital, commented: “Instabeat is a great example of a regional innovation going global. We have been close to Hind, mentoring her since the company’s early days and we are excited to now formally engage and help her take the company to the next level.”

“We are very excited to invest with Instabeat. Hind is a great entrepreneur from our region that has innovated and designed a product that has global potential. We think the business has tremendous potential with the current product and with future products in the wearable technologies field,” commented Samih Toukan, the Chairman and CEO of Jabbar Internet Group.