Medical Technology Entrepreneurship Sibel Health Recently awarded new funding to help achieve its mission of making health data more useful by developing wearable displays for the entire clinical care continuum.
Sibel recently closure $33 million in Series B funding, bringing its total funding to date to over $50 million.This round consists of Steele Hope Foundationa nonprofit that says it’s focused on funding technology to cure “humanity’s most daunting challenges.”
Founded in 2018, the startup is Northwestern University Querrey Simpson Institute for Bioelectronics and John Rogers Research Group from the initial grant Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. It has headquarters in the Chicago area and offices in San Diego and Seoul.
CEO Steve Xu said that while Sibel’s wearable sensor technology is now applicable across the entire spectrum of patient care, the company initially focused on premature babies in the neonatal intensive care unit.That’s how the startup got its name, it’s derived from Cybele, Mother Goddess of Anatolia. This reflects the company’s “unique commitment to global maternal, neonatal and pediatric monitoring,” Xu said.
Sibel’s core expertise is developing wearable sensors that maximize user comfort and ensure skin safety. Xu, who is a dermatologist, said comfort comes first because “the monitoring systems don’t work for patients who don’t wear them.”
The startup also prioritizes user-friendliness when designing its software and mobile interface. Annie One, its FDA-cleared wearable remote life monitoring platform. Anne One uses wearable sensors to capture the user’s vital signs, including skin and body temperature, heart rate, breathing rate, step count and body posture. Xu said the platform is focused on generating accurate data that is more useful to clinicians and patients in their treatment decisions.
“Right now, health data is underexploited in terms of benefiting patients,” he said. “It’s fragmented, episodic, reactive, and unpredictable.”
In addition to selling its technology directly to suppliers, Sibel also seeks partnerships with other companies to accelerate market access and reach a wider supplier customer base.For example, the startup has partnerships with medical device companies tractor Accelerate the use of Sibel technology in the hospital and home markets.
As for Sibel’s reimbursement path, Xu touted the startup’s technology beyond “narrow and fragmented use cases defined by a single CPT code.” The startup has an opportunity to receive reimbursement for at-home remote patient monitoring and diagnostic tests related to cardiovascular health or sleep medicine, he said.
Xu acknowledges that there are many other companies working on generating health data from wearables to inform treatment decisions, such as Weihualian and cow healthBut what sets Sibel apart, he says, is its focus on the patient experience, centered on the patient owning their own data, from the moment the adhesive touches the skin to the final monitor that the nurse or doctor sees.
The company will use its funding from the Series B round to grow its team, develop new products and scale commercialization of its Anne One platform.
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