Bardy Diagnostics, developers of a remote cardiac monitoring chest patch, has raised $35.5 million to help fund its platform and expand its sales force.
The series B round, led by River Cities Capital Funds, will also help expand the company’s monitoring services, as well as support the development of its AI-powered analysis and data visualization platforms.
Compared to other ECG patches, Bardy’s focuses on the scan’s P-wave, which heralds the contractions of the atria as the heart chambers fill with blood just before the recognizable, double-beat pumps of the ventricles. The narrow, disposable device—about the size of a large bandage—is placed in the center of the chest over the sternum and acts as a single-channel recorder.
Bardy says its discreet, hourglass-shaped design allows it to be worn more comfortably by both men and women and can be worn during activities such as exercise, showering and sleep over a seven-day period.
And by focusing on low-amplitude P-wave signals, which can be difficult to detect compared to the more-prominent QRS wave complex, the company aims to provide a clearer picture for the diagnosis of arrhythmias.
"For nearly 60 years, standard ECG engineering practices have over-processed the heart's electrical message to make machines’ ‘lives’ easier at the expense of losing details in the ECG," Gust Bardy, founder and CEO of the company, said in a statement. “In essence, such legacy engineering doesn't listen to what the heart is trying to tell us, but rather tells the heart what we are willing to hear.”
In May 2018, the company unveiled a head-to-head study comparing its wearable monitor with iRhythm’s Zio XT patch. Published in American Heart Journal, the study followed 30 patients wearing both devices at once.
RELATED: iRhythm ECG patch study shows fewer atrial fibrillation hospitalizations, more outpatient visits
After one week, Bardy’s patch had identified more types of arrhythmias—such as atrial tachycardia, atrial flutter and non-sustained ventricular tachycardia—though both performed adequately in atrial fibrillation, the company said.
River Cities was joined by new investors HealthQuest Capital, Aperture Venture Partners, Aphelion Capital, Lumira Ventures and Rex Health Ventures, alongside Bardy’s previous backers SV Health Investors, Health Enterprise Partners and Ascension Ventures.
Late last year, the company was named a recipient of the Fierce Innovation Life Sciences Award, for medical device innovation, and more recently was selected as one of 12 finalists in the Impact Pediatric Health Competition at South-by-Southwest 2019.