Gauss Surgical Announces $12.6 Million Series B Financing
Gauss Surgical, Inc., maker of Triton, the world’s first and only platform for real-time monitoring of surgical blood loss, today announced the close of its $12.6 million in Series B financing, bringing its total funding to $24.6 million.
Providence Ventures, the investment arm of Providence Health & Services, the third largest not-for-profit health system in the United States, led the round, with participation from Jump Capital, a Chicago-based firm specializing in expansion stage and growth capital investments. The round was also joined by existing investors Promus Ventures, LifeForce Ventures, Summation Health Ventures, and the Stanford-StartX Fund. Additionally, the Board of Directors elected two new members, Daniel Galles and Mike Collett. Galles is a partner at Providence Ventures and Collett is founder and managing partner of Promus Ventures. Dr. Garrett Vygantas, partner at Jump Capital, will join as Board Observer.
“Triton is the future of blood loss monitoring,” said Galles. “We are confident it will play a huge role in improving patient outcomes and provide the healthcare system millions of dollars in cost savings. Siddarth and the Gauss team have demonstrated strong operating experience and a compelling vision to disrupt the blood management space with a software-as-a-service business model, and we are thrilled with the opportunity to partner with them.”
Transfusions are the most commonly billed in-patient procedures at U.S. hospitals. Annually, the direct cost of over 13 million transfusions exceeds $15 billion.1,2 According to the Society for the Advancement of Blood Management, approximately 88 percent of all transfusions either resulted in harm or showed no benefit to the patient.2 Currently, intraoperative blood loss is visually estimated, which is known to be inaccurate and can result in inappropriate transfusion when overestimated. Conversely, underestimation of blood loss has been recognized as one of largest factors driving post-partum hemorrhage due to delayed recognition and intervention. This has become a national maternal health and safety issue; such societies as the Association of Women’s Health, Obstetric and Neonatal Nurses (AWHONN) and the California Maternal Quality Care Collaborative (CMQCC) have officially recommended that cumulative blood loss be formally measured or quantified after every birth.3,4
The FDA-cleared Triton system was conceived in 2011 and consists of an iPad and powerful, cloud- based algorithms. Scans taken during medical procedures of surgical sponges and blood-bearing canisters are processed in real time by Gauss’s software, helping surgeons make better decisions, armed with accurate blood loss assessments.
The board also named founder and chairman Siddarth Satish as Chief Executive Officer in December, 2015. Milton McColl, M.D.,who served as CEO for the past four years now serves as Chairman of the Board.
“Gauss has created and refined a revolutionary technology that can help millions of patients in the years ahead.” said Dr. McColl. “Siddarth provided excellent operational leadership as Chief Technology Officer these past five years and is uniquely equipped to lead the company into its growth phase.”
“Our vision at Gauss is to help patients and healthcare providers by leveraging data to improve and augment real-time decision making within complex care settings such as the OR,” said Satish. “Our immediate goal is to eliminate guesswork around blood loss by having every health system in the United States take full advantage of Triton.”