VIDA Diagnostics, Inc. ("VIDA"), a spin-off company of UI College of Engineering research and the leader in precision pulmonary informatics, has announced the completion of a $5.1 million round of equity financing. The investment will fuel VIDA's growth with commercialization of its VIDA|visionTM pulmonary imaging software and associated Precision Services. Funding was led by Chartline Capital Partners. Rittenhouse Ventures, Next Level Ventures, Rural Vitality Fund II, Iowa Seed Fund, and Northern California Investment Fund also participated in the round.
"VIDA's strategic focus and economic model is a tight fit with our investment criteria," said Phil Stern of Chartline Capital Partners. "VIDA's clinical market understanding and dominant position in the emerging pulmonary analytics space provide it a unique opportunity to raise the standard of care for patients and populations with or at risk of pulmonary disease."
The investment will be used to expand VIDA's commercialization efforts, hire additional talent, and enhance its clinical software and services. VIDA will advance its industry-leading solutions for pulmonary disease management, including lung cancer, COPD, and asthma.
In addition, VIDA announced the expansion of its executive team with the addition of Sandra J. Stapleton, M.Sc., as chief operations officer. Stapleton will strengthen VIDA's operations and executive management team to support growth in pulmonary clinical software and services. Stapleton has over 20 years of experience successfully incorporating innovative clinical solutions into the marketplace. She has led strategic, clinical, operations and technology functions, and post acquisition transitional teams. She comes to VIDA from Lexmark International (following acquisition of Claron Technology, Inc.), where she led the imaging platform business, corporate quality and regulatory, and visualization engineering functions for Lexmark.
VIDA offers a unique lung informatics solution that is a combination of image analysis services (Precision Services) and software visualization and analytics (VIDA|vision). The solution spans both diagnostic and therapeutic planning applications. For suspected lung cancer patients, VIDA|vision provides interventional pulmonologists with airway mapping software to guide an optimal path for bronchoscopic biopsy. For severe emphysema patients, VIDA provides an array of advanced, clinically-validated measures to inform treatment selection to match the right patient to the right treatment, focusing on improving outcomes.
VIDA was co-founded by Milan Sonka, Lowell C. Battershell Chair in Biomedical Engineering, professor of electrical and computer engineering, and co-director of the Iowa Institute for Biomedical Imaging; and Joseph Reinhardt, professor of biomedical engineering and Image Analysis Group leader at the Iowa Institute for Biomedical Imaging.