HITIQ Shifts to Consumer Market with VAFA Partnership

HITIQ Limited (ASX: HIQ) (HITIQ or the Company) announces a strategic shift to focus on the consumer market, targeting amateur and community-level athletes of all ages across a variety of sports with its new HITIQ PROTEQT system. This shift to the consumer market is a natural strategic step for the Company, running in parallel with its established work in professional sports, taking its world-leading impact detection technology where it can have the greatest impact—in the amateur sporting community, and positioning HITIQ to tap into a vast, accessible market, steering the Company toward a sustainable, cash flow positive future. This direction is reinforced by a significant milestone: a three-year partnership with the Victorian Amateur Football Association (VAFA), naming HITIQ as the VAFA’s ‘Official Concussion Technology Partner.’

• HITIQ is shifting its strategic focus to the consumer market, targeting amateur and community-level athletes.
• This strategic shift to the consumer market complements ongoing efforts in professional sports.
• A three-year partnership with the VAFA marks a key launchpad, driving HITIQ toward a cash flow positive future.

The consumer market, encompassing millions of amateur players globally, offers a substantial opportunity driven by increasing concussion awareness and demand for cost-effective safety solutions. Research shows community-level athletes and parents prioritize wellbeing, creating strong incentives for adopting HITIQ’s technology, which includes real-time impact detection, symptom assessment, and telehealth support. As part of this shift, HITIQ PROTEQT will be made available to VAFA clubs, monitoring head impacts in real time, flagging potential concussion risks, and guiding players through symptom assessments with telehealth access to emergency physicians and concussion specialists when needed. Players diagnosed with concussion by their preferred medical professional will follow club medical staff guidance and AFL community concussion protocols for return-to-play. Leveraging its extensive elite sports foundation, HITIQ will keep advancing its technology at this level to strengthen offerings for the community market.

HITIQ PROTEQT integrates proven elite-level technology—previously validated by partners like Monash University and Virginia Tech—into an accessible, boil-and-bite smart mouthguard. Priced for broad uptake and paired with a subscription model, HITIQ PROTEQT offers head impact monitoring, concussion management, and return-to-play guidance, and will be available to consumers this season. The VAFA partnership builds on HITIQ’s prior success with the Nexus iMG in this league, providing a proven foundation to drive adoption among amateur players and families.

Earl Eddings, Executive Chairman of HITIQ, said:

“This shift positions HITIQ where the real demand is – grassroots sport. We’ve built a scalable, consumer- focused product that meets a clear need, backed by world-class technology…