2025 Innovation Issue: Startups to Watch - Quasistatics Inc. (d/b/a Ixana)

Indianapolis Business Journal spotlights Ixana (operating as the commercial brand of Quasistatics Inc.) in their 2025 Innovation Issue as one of 20 promising startups transforming their industries. The West Lafayette-based company is pioneering body-area networking technology that addresses critical power and connectivity challenges in wearable devices.

Creating private networks around humans

Ixana provides chips and other technology that enables wearable and smart devices to securely communicate through touch by creating a private electric-field based network around humans. The company's Wi-R technology uses the body's conductivity to generate what founder Shreyas Sen describes as "your own personal aura"—a tiny electromagnetic field around the body that can transmit data.

Solving the wearable power crisis

The technology represents a breakthrough for battery-constrained devices like AR glasses and health monitors. Wi-R uses electro-quasistatic human body conduction to transmit data at a fraction of the energy cost compared to conventional wireless technologies like Wi-Fi and Bluetooth—consuming 100 to 1000 times less power while maintaining high-speed broadband communication.

From research to commercialization

Based in West Lafayette with 21 employees, Ixana has evolved from Purdue University research into a commercial venture gaining significant traction. The company has won multiple CES Innovation Awards, including recognition at CES 2024 for Embedded Technology and Computer Hardware. Ixana also received the TechPoint Mira Award for Startup of the Year in 2023.

Market validation and growth

The startup's Wi-R silicon chip platform enables seamless device pairing, charging-free wearables, and secure data transfer through touch. With backing from investors including Purdue Ventures and Elevate Ventures, Ixana offers evaluation kits for wearable manufacturers seeking to integrate body-area networking into their products.

Part of Indiana's innovation ecosystem

Ixana exemplifies the type of hardtech innovation emerging from Indiana's university research ecosystem. As part of the broader Innovation Issue coverage, IBJ profiled 20 companies across various stages—from pre-revenue startups to those with hundreds of customers—representing the state's growing entrepreneurial landscape in sectors including health care, defense, agriculture, and wearable technology.

Vision for the future

The company's technology enables transformative applications including all-day AR headsets that stream video from lightweight glasses to remote processors without draining batteries, always-on health monitoring devices, and seamless multi-device ecosystems that communicate securely through the human body. As wearable computing continues to evolve, Ixana's power-efficient communication platform positions the company at the forefront of enabling practical, comfortable all-day wearable experiences.