Acurable, an award-winning wearable medical devices company, announced an €11m investment due to its Series A funding round. These funds will be used to accelerate the international expansion of its first product AcuPebble SA100 and drive the company towards its ambition to become the preferred solution for home sleep testing worldwide. The investment was led by Kibo Ventures, along with Mundi Ventures, Kindred Capital, and Comprador Holdings among others.
Acurable's first product AcuPebble SA100 simplifies obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) detection and monitoring by enabling fully automated testing of patients at home for the first time. After successfully launching AcuPebble SA100 in the UK and Spain in 2021, Acurable is now looking to scale up in these two countries and expand into further European markets and North America.
AcuPebble SA100 is the first wearable medical device to obtain a CE mark in Europe for the automated diagnosis of obstructive sleep apnea at home and has received FDA 510(k) clearance in the US. It is also the first device in the world that achieves the accuracy in likelihood ratios required by the US Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) to consider a diagnostic method equivalent to the gold standard, according to a press release.
This funding follows the recent announcement of a strategic distribution agreement with Nyxoah to provide the AcuPebble SA100 home sleep test to the German market. Acurable's international expansion brings it one step closer to solving the current unmet needs in the diagnosis and monitoring of OSA - a significant issue affecting approximately one billion people globally.
Professor Esther Rodriguez-Villegas, inventor of the AcuPebble technology, co-CEO and founder of Acurable, is a world-renowned scientist and has been awarded some of the highest recognitions in her field. She commented: “The response to AcuPebble SA100 since its launch has been incredible, and we are thrilled to see the product being used to help patients and clinicians in the real world. This funding will help us reach our initial goal of diagnosing one million patients and gives us the opportunity to continue working on new products that will fundamentally improve the lives of millions of people living with severe chronic conditions.”
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Based on contact acoustic sensing, AcuPebble technology is able to automatically extract a wide range of cardio-respiratory disease-related physiological markers. It does this non-invasively and continuously with accuracy comparable to current complex gold-standard methods, which rely heavily on clinical human resources. The technology is ideally positioned to significantly improve the diagnosis and management of some of the most significant chronic respiratory and cardiovascular conditions today. These affect hundreds of millions of people, have significant unmet needs in terms of patient monitoring, and are among the most common causes of death globally. Series A funding will allow Acurable to continue investing in new products for these conditions.
Sonia Fernández, Partner at Kibo Ventures, said: “We are delighted to be joining Acurable’s exciting journey. AcuPebble has the potential to transform the way sleep apnea and other chronic conditions are diagnosed and monitored. It’s much more accurate and easier to use than other devices, and we believe it’s a huge step forward for global healthcare. This is still just the beginning for Acurable and I cannot wait for what comes next.”
About AcuPebble
AcuPebble systems operate on the principle of acoustic sensing, whereby the sounds generated by the body’s physiological functions are sensed with a proprietary non-invasive wearable device. The signals are then transferred wirelessly to a mobile device and to the cloud where algorithms (also proprietary) automatically extract the physiological parameters and indexes used by doctors to diagnose and manage important cardio-respiratory conditions such as obstructive sleep apnoea (OSA).
About Acurable
Acurable is a fast-growing medical devices company with offices in London and Seville. Its award-winning, patented AcuPebble technology enables the automated diagnosis and management of respiratory conditions at home. It builds on the foundation of more than 10 years of research at the Wearable Technologies Lab in the Imperial College London, by Acurable’s founder, Professor Esther Rodriguez-Villegas.
