Awarepoint Adds $14M to Fund its Continuing Expansion

San Diego-based Awarepoint, which raised $27 million in a Series F financing round last August, says today it’s raised $14 million in additional financing, with the Heritage Healthcare Innovation Fund putting up $7.5 million of the total.

A spokeswoman for Awarepoint says the new funding is not part of last year’s Series F funding, so we can assume the company is now on its Series G round. But then, who’s counting?

Existing investors filled out the balance of the deal. They include Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, Cardinal Partners, Venrock, Jafco Ventures, Avalon Ventures, New Leaf Ventures, and Top Tier Capital Partners. Awarepoint, which is building out its real-time tracking technology for hospitals and other healthcare facilities, says the funding will fuel the expansion of its professional services, client management, and manufacturing capabilities.

In today’s statement, Awarepoint CEO Jay Deady says, “This strategic funding will fuel our continued growth with high-volume, high-velocity clients, including Kaiser, BannerHealth and other top U.S. health systems, as well as drive additional market growth opportunities.”

Awarepoint represents the first investment by the Heritage Healthcare Innovation Fund, a $157 million strategic venture fund backed by a group of healthcare providers and operated by the Nashville, TN-based Heritage Group, a private healthcare investment firm. The limited partnership backing the fund includes Amedisys, Cardinal Health, Community Health Systems, Health Care Service Corp., Iowa Health System, LifePoint Hospitals, Memorial Hermann Healthcare System, Trinity Health (of Novi, MI, and Vanguard Health Systems.

Awarepoint says it now provides its real-time, location-tracking technology to 186 hospitals, and is tracking nearly 300,000 radio frequency identification devices (RFIDs) affixed to everything from blood pressure monitors to patient tissue samples. The company says its technology helps hospitals manage and track assets, patients, and medical personnel. Its tags are used to monitor blood and tissue samples, increase hand hygiene compliance; and improve patient and caregiver workflows.

Author: Bruce V. Bigelow

In Memoriam: Our dear friend Bruce V. Bigelow passed away on June 29, 2018. He was the editor of Xconomy San Diego from 2008 to 2018. Read more about his life and work here. Bruce Bigelow joined Xconomy from the business desk of the San Diego Union-Tribune. He was a member of the team of reporters who were awarded the 2006 Pulitzer Prize in National Reporting for uncovering bribes paid to San Diego Republican Rep. Randy “Duke” Cunningham in exchange for special legislation earmarks. He also shared a 2006 award for enterprise reporting from the Society of Business Editors and Writers for “In Harm’s Way,” an article about the extraordinary casualty rate among employees working in Iraq for San Diego’s Titan Corp. He has written extensively about the 2002 corporate accounting scandal at software goliath Peregrine Systems. He also was a Gerald Loeb Award finalist and National Headline Award winner for “The Toymaker,” a 14-part chronicle of a San Diego start-up company. He takes special satisfaction, though, that the series was included in the library for nonfiction narrative journalism at the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard University. Bigelow graduated from U.C. Berkeley in 1977 with a degree in English Literature and from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism in 1979. Before joining the Union-Tribune in 1990, he worked for the Associated Press in Los Angeles and The Kansas City Times.