PhysIQ, a Chicago company that makes technology for monitoring at-risk patients, announced on Tuesday that it has raised an $8 million Series B round of funding.
PhysIQ will use the funding to launch a new product, VitaLink, that combines IoT and artificial intelligence technologies to let caregivers continuously monitor patients at home. The platform captures vital signs like heart rate, activity and respiration from wearable devices, and has features for population monitoring as well as for drilldowns into an individual patient’s data.
The platform’s AI engine can automatically alert providers when vital signs appear out of the ordinary.
“PhysIQ’s proprietary AI-enabled technology detects subtle, yet significant, changes in physiological parameters, thereby allowing healthcare enterprises to proactively manage patients to mitigate the costs associated with readmissions, inadequate therapies, non-adherent patients and other clinical events in commercial, government and clinical trial settings,” said founder and CEO Gary Conkright in a statement.
The company’s technology is an adaptation of technologies originally developed to monitor nuclear plants. According to Crain’s, the technology was licensed for use in healthcare 12 years ago, receiving FDA approval in 2015.
4490 Ventures led the round, in which the Global Health Sciences Fund, Quark Venture, GF Securities and LionBird also participated. LionBird was the lead investor in PhysIQ’s last round, a $4.6 million Series A raised three years ago today.
Dan Malven, managing partner at 4490 Ventures and a PhysIQ board member, said the company’s suite of patents and experience commercializing its technology in other industries makes it an attractive prospect for investors.
“The convergence of IT and medicine holds the promise to fundamentally change how clinicians diagnose, treat, prescribe, intervene and manage patient health,” said Malven in a statement. “The physIQ team is uniquely equipped to make that happen with their market leading cloud-based platform and personalized analytics technology, protected with over 100 issued patents, that they previously commercialized in other highly demanding industries.”
Use cases include patients discharged after experiencing heart failure or recovering from invasive procedures like hip replacement surgery. PhysIQ’s technology can also be used by medical device manufacturers and pharmaceutical companies to research product safety.
According to Crain’s, PhysIQ employs 19 people between its offices in the Loop and Naperville. Conkright told the paper he expects that number to grow to 25 by the end of the year.
Image via PhysIQ.
