Eko, maker of devices and platforms for monitoring heart function, has raised $20 million in Series B funding. The raise was led by ARTIS Ventures, and also includes DigiTx Partners, NTT Venture Capital (NTTVC), 3M Ventures, Mayo Clinic, Seaph Group and XTX Ventures.
Eko closed its previous rounds in February of last year and early 2015. Today’s announcement brings the company’s lifetime capital raise to roughly $27.8 million.
WHAT THEY DO
The San Francisco company is perhaps best known for its Eko Duo device, a smart remote monitor that’s part stethoscope, part ECG. Cleared in 2017, the tool is paired with automated analyses and provider-facing software to power remote patient monitoring and telehealth care.
However, the company has lately had a hand in the clinical trial space as well, having launched a new platform in July called Eko Home that looks to pinpoint novel drug-data combinations. Eko said at the time that this platform was already being employed by Mayo Clinic in an ongoing study investigating the impact of certain cardiovascular therapies on patients undergoing chemotherapy.
Such partnerships were highlighted by the company in today’s funding announcement, which along with the Mayo Clinic also identified Northwestern Medicine and Sutter Health as health system partners employing Eko’s products.
WHAT IT’S FOR
The company said that these new funds with support additional R&D and commercialization of its machine learning platform.
“Artificial intelligence is arguably one of the most powerful advancements in modern medicine, enabling clinicians to predict with more accuracy, diagnose with more confidence, and in the end, give their patients the best care possible,” Connor Landgraf, CEO of Eko, said in a statement. “We will use this funding to drive more research, and continue development of data-driven technology to help physicians detect and monitor patients with heart disease that may otherwise be missed.”
MARKET SNAPSHOT
Cardiovascular conditions are a major driver of chronic disease and death, so it’s little surprise that Eko isn’t alone in tackling the issue with devices or artificial intelligence. Examples of the former include wristworn blood pressure monitors, wearable patches or consumer wellness products. On the software side, there’s a handful of FDA clearances of specific algorithms or full-fledged monitoring platforms vying for attention across the market.
ON THE RECORD
“Eko is transforming cardiac care as we know it,” Vasudev Bailey, partner at ARTIS Ventures, said in a statement. “They are the perfect example of how machine learning using quality data sets can positively influence patient outcomes and improve quality of care. This demonstrates the potential for an immense pipeline of life-saving applications where sound can aid in the screening of many other diseases.”
