Tasso, the US-based creator of a home blood-sampling kit, closed a $17m series A round on Wednesday featuring healthcare provider Cedars-Sinai as well as pharmaceutical firm Merck & Co.
Venture capital firm Hambrecht Ducera Growth Ventures led the round, which was also backed by Foresite Capital, Vertical Venture Partners and Techstars, while Merck participated through its Global Health Innovation Fund.
Founded in 2011, Tasso has developed a system called OnDemand which allows users to collect blood samples at home through a method it claims is virtually painless. The device also cuts down on physical contact, making it especially useful during social distancing.
Muna Bhanji, Merck’s senior vice-president of global market access, said: “The Merck Global Health Innovation Fund was established to enable companies like Tasso, to scale technology platforms with the potential to become integral parts of our global healthcare ecosystem in support of enhancing patient health outcomes.
“An important area of focus is the need for innovations that provide more patient-centric approaches to enable collection of reliable and actionable clinical data.”
Tasso entered the Cedars-Sinai Accelerator Powered by Techstars accelerator in 2017 and received $13.1m in grant funding before it raised $6.1m in a March 2019 series A round led by Vertical Venture Partners that included Cedars-Sinai and Techstars.
Photo courtesy of Tasso Inc.
