The Latest Startup to Win Big Bucks for Predictive Tech: Potrero Medical

A health-tech startup that uses sensors and analytics to detect “critical illnesses,” including acute kidney injury (AKI), has raised $26.6 million in Series C funding, according to an announcement from the company.

Potrero Medical secured the money from GT Healthcare Capital Partners, which mostly focuses on China’s ever-growing healthcare market, and Silicon Valley’s Sonder Capital. The investment brings Potrero Medical’s total earned capital to at least $31.6 million, according to the startup tracker Crunchbase.

“At Potrero, we are not only focused on the 300,000 people [who] lose their life due to AKI, but also focused on their families,” the company’s CEO, Joe Urban, MBA, said in a statement. “We have a technology that enables medical teams to proactively treat patients, so that patients can return to their normal lives with their families.”

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Potrero’s star product is called the Accuryn Monitoring System, which is essentially a urinary catheter with a smart sensor that can observe intensive care unit (ICU) patients’ vital signs—including measurements of intra-abdominal pressure, urine output, and body temperature—in real time. The FDA cleared the innovation for market in 2016. Potrero touts the tech as a means to save clinicians’ time and, most important, identify AKI early.

Roughly half of ICU patients must battle AKI, according to research. In the United States, the condition causes about 300,000 deaths every year despite the ability to reduce risk by monitoring urine and providing treatment early. Potrero noted that its Accuryn Monitoring System is designed to accomplish that goal.

The company intends to use its newly acquired capital to “support further commercialization” of the product and develop an artificial intelligence (AI) platform to help physicians intervene early when it comes to serious conditions like AKI, according to the announcement.

“Using artificial intelligence and data analytics, the Accuryn system will be a transformative advancement in predictive health,” Frederic Moll, MD, a member of Potrero’s board of directors and a health-tech startup veteran, said in a statement.

The investment represents yet another notch on the belt of health tech, whose roster of companies working on predictive technologies and AI platforms has been expanding for some time. Those startups’ capital reserves, meanwhile, have steadily swelled with each passing year.

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