Berkeley, Feb. 28, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) --
Eko, the leader in acoustic cardiac monitoring, today announced a $5 million Series A led by ARTIS Ventures. Additional investors in the round include Strategic Partners, Dreamlt Ventures, 1812 Ventures, and FOUNDER.org. The funding will be used to grow Eko's commercial team and to expand clinical studies on the use of Eko's platform for valvular heart disease screening and heart failure monitoring.
According to the American Heart Association, more than 92 million adults are living with some form of cardiovascular disease or the after-effects of stroke, and direct and indirect costs of these ailments are estimated to total more than $316 billion. Eko’s FDA-cleared devices and accompanying software, which are used by clinicians at more than 1,000 hospitals and health systems, help physicians better monitor their patient’s cardiac health, both in the hospital and at the patient’s home.
"We partner with investors that are passionate about solving meaningful problems; together we can transform the way clinicians and patients monitor heart disease,” said Connor Landgraf, Eko's co-founder and CEO. “This investment will enable us to integrate cardiac decision algorithms into our platform to help physicians better track their patients’ cardiac health.”
In addition to its recent FDA clearance of Eko DUO, Eko has received UCSF’s Institutional Review Board (IRB) approval for a clinical study focused on valvular heart disease screenings. The study will be led by Dr. John Chorba, Associate Professor and Cardiologist at UCSF.
“Eko and ARTIS Ventures are of likemind in that we both want to tackle the use of technology to improve people’s lives, and for the longest time we’ve relied on the ability for a trained ear to diagnose heart problems,” said Vasudev Bailey, partner at ARTIS Ventures. “By elegantly applying machine learning to the largest database of sounds, Eko has made it possible for physicians and consumers to imagine a world where we can quickly and easily diagnose medical conditions. While cardiology is a natural starting place, the solutions have extensions to pulmonology and gastroenterology as well, without forcing a change in patient–physician flow. Their solution easily provides a smarter way to track, and diagnose, medical aberrations.”
For more information about Eko and its products visit https://ekodevices.com/.
About Eko
Eko is a platform of non-invasive cardiac screening devices, care coordination software, and machine learning algorithms that enables more effective screening and management of cardiovascular diseases. The company’s first FDA-cleared device, CORE, is a smart stethoscope and accompanying platform now used by clinicians at more than 1,000 hospitals and health systems around the globe, and was recognized as a “Best Invention of the Year” by TIME Magazine. Eko's latest FDA-cleared device, DUO, is the first cardiac monitor to combine digital stethoscope and ECG technology for in-clinic and at-home monitoring, offering 28 million heart disease patients the ability to seamlessly send cardiac data to their physicians. Eko’s physician advisors include industry-leading cardiologists from Massachusetts General Hospital, UCSF, and the Mayo Clinic, and investors include ARTIS Ventures, FOUNDER.org, the founders of Shazam, Stanford University’s StartX Fund, and DreamIt Ventures. For more information visit www.ekodevices.com or email contact@ekodevices.com.
About ARTIS Ventures
Founded in 2002, ARTIS Ventures supports and partners with entrepreneurs who are driven to positively impact their world through disruptive technological innovation. ARTIS was the first institutional investor in cancer-curing Stemcentrx, which was acquired for as much as $10.2 billion in 2016, making it the largest venture-backed acquisition in the history of life sciences. Other notable companies the firm has backed include YouTube, Modern Meadow, Nimble Storage, Aruba Networks, Quid, Fabric Genomics, IDbyDNA, Versa Networks, Cohesity, ExcisionBio Therapeutics, Locus Biosciences and many more. The firm supports its portfolio companies throughout their entire life-cycle, from initial venture investment to initial public offering and beyond. For more information visit www.av.co or email contact@artisventures.com.
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