Bigfoot Biomedical said yesterday that it raised $35.5 million in a Series A round for the artificial pancreas technology it’s developing to treat Type I diabetes.
The round, led by Quadrant Capital Advisors, included backing from Cormorant Asset Management, Senvest Capital, and Visionnaire Ventures. Bigfoot said it plans to use the proceeds to fund the final development of its Smartloop automated insulin delivery platform.
The Milpitas, Calif.-based company bills Smartloop as “the world’s first Internet-of-Things medical device system delivered as a monthly service,” based on a “cloud-connected ecosystem” designed to link wearable insulin delivery and glucose monitoring devices controlled via smartphone.
“Bigfoot Biomedical is only the second company in the world to embed a closed-loop control algorithm in a sensor-augmented insulin pump,” co-founder, president & CEO Jeffrey Brewer said in prepared remarks. “From a standing start it took Bigfoot a year and a half to reach this milestone; to design, develop, manufacture, and begin human trials with a fully integrated automated insulin delivery system.”
Brewer and co-founder & CTO Bryan “Bigfoot” Mazlish put up the seed funding for the company after Mazlish designed Bigfoot’s prototype automated insulin delivery system in 2014 for his wife and son.
In June 2015, the company acquired the assets of shuttered insulin pump maker Asante and moved into its Silicon Valley HQ, saying it planned to integrate Asante’s FDA-cleared Snap insulin pump into its own system. A year later, Bigfoot launched a clinical trial of the Smartloop platform. The company said yesterday that it’s inked deals with “leading glucose monitoring companies,” including Dexcom (NSDQ:DXCM) and now employs some 40 workers.
The Series A round also put Quadrant Capital managing director Thomas Brener on its board of directors; Bob Kavner, a seasoned director for several other companies, also joined the board, the company said.
