Riva Health, the US-based developer of cardiovascular data collection app, has received $15.5m in a series A round featuring University of Colorado’s Innovation Fund and the institution’s affiliate health system UCHealth.
Venture capital firm Menlo Ventures led the round, which included private investors Brandon Cruz and Larry Gies, having led a seed round of undisclosed size in 2020 disclosed as part of the series A announcement, investing alongside True Ventures.
Riva Health is working on a mobile app that asks the user to place an index finger on the camera lens on the phone’s back – which typically offers higher resolution than the lens on the front – to measure the blood-pulse waveform, showing changes in blood flow volume and intensity.
The real-time monitoring facilitates the detection of a range of conditions, through the company is initially focusing on high blood pressure. The app connects to healthcare providers to enable remote patient management.
In addition to its investment, UCHealth has partnered Riva Health to deploy the technology at its hospitals. The latter company is currently seeking regulatory clearance in the United States and aims to launch a beta version of its app in the coming months.
Richard Zane, chief innovation officer of UCHealth, has been appointed to Riva’s board of directors, joining Menlo Ventures partner Greg Yap.
The original version of this article appeared on our sister site, Global University Venturing.