ConsortiEX, a healthcare IT startup with roots in both Wisconsin and Massachusetts, has closed a $1 million funding round led by Open Prairie Ventures, the company announced today.
ConsortiEX developed an ordering and tracking software system for the production and distribution of sterile injectable compounds, such as antibiotics, analgesics, and neuromuscular blockers. Its target customers are hospitals, who are trying to reduce costs and efficiently manage their supplies of such products—crucial drugs that have been in short supply in recent years. ConsortiEX says its software can help achieve those goals, while also potentially improving safety by helping to prevent patients from receiving recalled medications and catching problems with product quality.
The company was originally based in Andover, MA, where co-founder and CEO Neal Long lives. ConsortiEX went through Boston’s MassChallenge accelerator in summer 2014.
The company has since moved its headquarters to downtown Milwaukee, where nine of the 11 employees are located, vice president and general manager Todd Edwards said in an interview. The team includes alumni of the former Marquette Electronics and GE Healthcare.
The Wisconsin Economic Development Corp. gave the startup a $250,000 loan and approved the company for a state investment tax credit program.
The $1 million round announced today includes money from Effingham, IL-based Open Prairie and other unnamed private investors. ConsortiEX has now raised $1.2 million total in equity funding, mostly from Wisconsin investors, Edwards said. The company plans to use the new money for product development and to hire another three or four engineers by the end of the year, he added.
“This investment will accelerate the launch of our software solutions and create hi-tech jobs for this rapidly growing segment of the healthcare industry,” Long said in a press release. “We’re already working with some of the nation’s largest healthcare providers and soon expect to make our software solutions commercially available.”
