Tag: South Korea

SoftBank Ventures Korea Co-Leads $20M Series C in Gauss Surgical

SoftBank Ventures Korea, the global early-stage venture capital arm of SoftBank Group, has co-led the $20-million Series C funding round in Silicon Valley-based AI healthcare technology firm Gauss Surgical.

Also co-leading the round is Northwell Health, with LS Polaris Innovation Fund and seven other leading US health systems chipping in.

The proceeds of the round will be used to accelerate the adoption of its Triton platform in hospitals and to develop new AI-driven applications for the operating room.

The company’s flagship product, Triton, monitors surgical blood loss in real time using digital imaging and machine learning on the iPad.

It has received de novo approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and a European CE mark. It is in increasingly widespread use in hospitals across the United States; so far, Triton has been adopted by 50 hospitals which perform more than 200,000 infant deliveries each year.

Over the last 15 years, preventable maternal deaths and harmful postpartum health complications for mothers have increased precipitously in the U.S. due to undetected hemorrhaging, particularly in cesarean deliveries.

According to a recent study of 2,781 caesarean section patients published in the American Journal of Perinatology, implementing Triton was associated with significant increases in recognition of maternal hemorrhage and significant decreases in blood product transfusions and hospital length of stay.

“The practical application of AI in hospitals will be a major growth driver in the medical technology industry, especially in addressing high-cost, high-impact unmet clinical needs,” said Siddarth Satish, founder and Chief Executive Officer of Gauss. “We are pleased to be strategically aligned with investors who bring significant operational experience both in AI-enabled services and in healthcare as we scale our platform.”

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The investors contributing to the Series C funding include the LS Polaris Innovation Fund of Polaris Partners, a Boston-based venture capital firm with more than $4.3 billion under management. It also includes the strategic venture arms of several leading healthcare systems including UNC/REX Healthcare, OSF Healthcare, Providence Healthcare, Orlando Health, Spectrum Health, Mount Sinai Health System, and the Memorial Hermann Health System.

“As a leader in the AI-driven healthcare technology field, Gauss is profoundly altering the delivery model for medical devices and services in hospitals. We are excited to back the company and its founder’s vision to fundamentally transform the way operating and delivery rooms work,” said J.P. Lee, CEO and managing director of SoftBank Ventures Korea. – AsiaPEVC.com

South Korea’s ProtoPie Raises $3.5m in KIP-led Series A

ProtoPie, an interactive prototyping tool for digital product designers, has raised $3.5 million in a Series A funding round led by Korea Investment Partners (KIP), according to Studio XID, the developer of the design tool.

The Series A financing round was led by KIP with the participation of Kolon Investment and POSCO Venture Capital. Korea Investment Partners are known for backing internet startups Naver known to be the largest unicorn in the Korean peninsula and DoubleU Casino a famous social casino gaming publisher.

Since launching ProtoPie commercially last year and raising a Pre-Series A with venture capital firm Evergreen Investment Partners and the investment arms of international giants Samsung and LINE, the prototyping tool has been experiencing significant growth.

Designers in more than 70 countries at renowned companies like Google, Microsoft, Nintendo, IDEO and Alibaba have integrated ProtoPie in their daily workflow.

“We’re empowering designers to create highly interactive prototypes that are hard to distinguish from the actual digital products they design for. This way, designers can validate ideas easily and quickly while bridging the gap with stakeholders. Nowadays, it’s not just apps and websites on a single screen on your phone or computer. Of course, they still dominate the broad spectrum of digital products,” said co-founder and CEO Tony Kim, who has been with Google prior to becoming an entrepreneur.

ProtoPie allows designers to utilize sensors in smart devices, e.g. tilt, proximity and sound sensors when it comes to highly interactive prototyping. Also, designers can easily create prototypes that can communicate with each other by creating interactions across devices.

Also Read: Singapore’s Radiflow Bags $18M from ST Engineering

An example would be realistically mimicking the way drivers and passengers interact in an Uber-like service. Furthermore, prototypes made in ProtoPie can integrate with external hardware like Arduino or littleBits, allowing the possibilities to be endless. These features allow ProtoPie to be at the forefront of prototyping in the software industry.