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| Triton Fluid Management System for surgical blood loss--Courtesy of Gauss Surgical |
Gauss Surgical, maker of a real-time monitor app for blood loss during surgery, raised $1.5 million by selling equity in the company. The total offering could go as high as $2 million, according to a SEC filing.
With the cash infusion, the Silicon Valley-based company reached a total funding of about $7.7 million. The regulatory filing didn't disclose who invested in the latest round of fundraising. Gauss closed a $6.2 million Series A round in October 2013. It was led by LifeForce Ventures with Promus Ventures and Taube Investment Partners participating.
In May, the FDA gave its nod to the company's Triton Fluid Management System, an app that uses the camera on an iPad tablet to scan surgical gauze. In real time, it can estimate how much blood a patient has lost during surgery. The system uses an algorithm that alerts a surgeon if a transfusion is necessary. Typically, surgical sponges are weighed to estimate blood loss.
Gauss, which was founded in 2011 and was an early participant in Stanford University's StartX incubator, estimates that between 20% to 60% of blood transfusions are unnecessary, which can cost the U.S. healthcare industry up to $10 billion a year, not to mention increasing the risks associated with transfusions.
In August, the company completed its first patient cases with the system to estimate blood loss during cesarean section surgeries at Magee-Womens Hospital of the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center.
- see the SEC filing
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