Exo Raises $40M Series B Extension To Bring Ultrasound Device To Market

Exo (pronounced “echo”) secured $40 million in Series B extension funding. The startup is a developer of a handheld ultrasound device.

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The Redwood City, California-based startup was formed in 2015 by Janusz Bryzek, John Kokulis, Sandeep Akkaraju and Yusuf Haque, and is pairing its device with workflow apps to give hospitals and clinics better software to speed up imaging during emergencies.

“Emergency room physicians around the world are often tasked with solving some of the most urgent health care problems—COVID-19 diagnosis and complications, cardiac emergencies, internal bleeding—without being able to see clearly into a patient they only have minutes to diagnose and treat,” said CEO Akkaraju in a written statement.

“Exo plans to give these critical frontline heroes the device they need—one that immediately opens up a window into every body and enables them to make speedy, accurate and often life-saving medical decisions on the spot,” he said.

Fiscus Ventures and Reimagined Ventures, affiliates of Magnetar Capital, along with Action Potential Venture Capital led the investment. Additional participation came from TDK Ventures, Solasta Ventures and all existing investors, including Intel Capital and Applied Ventures.

Including the Series B+ funding round, Exo has raised nearly $100 million, according to the company. It raised its initial Series B funding of $35 million last August, according to Crunchbase data.

The new funds will go toward research and product development, the company said. Both the ultrasound device and workflow software platform will initially be launched in the United States—at the end of the year for the software and in the first quarter of 2021 for the device, the company said.

The global point-of-care ultrasound market is forecast to reach $3 billion in 2024, according to industry analyst Technavio. Handheld ultrasound is forecasted to lead the industry’s growth.

Dr. Ted Koutouzis of Fiscus and Reimagined Ventures, who also works as an emergency room doctor at Northwestern Memorial Hospital, said in a written statement that he knows firsthand the potential that technology like Exo’s can bring to health care.

“The Exo team is focused on building a device that works seamlessly within the often chaotic and urgent environment of a hospital, and delivers the image quality, clean interface, and diagnostic tools that doctors have dreamed about having in the palm of our hands,” he added. “These devices coupled with the Exo enterprise software solution should begin to allow us to change the clinical paradigm of emergency medicine ultrasound.”

Illustration: Dom Guzman