Velano taps $25M in new funding for its needle-free, bedside blood draw system

Velano Vascular, maker of a needle-free blood draw system, has closed a second tranche of new financing with $25 million to put toward its commercialization and launch of additional access products and medical devices for the inpatient setting.

The funding follows up on an initial tranche of $10 million, secured by the company this past May. That included backing from Intermountain Healthcare—which previously rolled out the former Fierce 15 winner’s blood collection technology across all 22 of its Utah-area hospitals—as well as from other investors, entrepreneurs and philanthropists.

“We are thrilled to welcome new and returning investors as we continue to establish a more humane global standard for hospital practice at the intersection of blood collection, vascular access and infection prevention,” Velano CEO Eric Stone said in a statement. A list of investors for the latest raise was not disclosed.

Cleared by the FDA in 2017, Velano’s PIVO device attaches to a patient’s IV and pushes a small flexible catheter through the line and into the vein—past the debris, medication and fluids that may collect at the end of the tube and otherwise taint or block a blood sample.

The device allows practitioners to collect as many tubes or syringes of blood as needed while the patient is in the hospital without additional needle sticks.

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“Commercial demand for PIVO and our family of novel solutions is being driven by a move to One-Stick Hospitalization and a growing realization that removing needles from blood draws improves the patient experience, protects practitioners and boosts the bottom line,” Stone added. This year, the San Francisco-based company marked its one-millionth PIVO procedure.

The funding this year also helped support the construction of a new U.S. manufacturing line, after Velano expanded the use of its blood collection technologies to 10 states and dozens of hospitals in 2018.