CleanSlate UV, a Toronto-based startup that offers a sanitizing product for mobile devices in hospitals, has raised a $8.4 million CAD ($6 million USD) Series A round of funding.
The $8.4 million CAD was invested by Prolog Ventures, a health and wellness VC firm that deployed the funding through its Prolog Lonza fund, which was created in partnership with chemicals company Lonza Specialty Ingredients.
”Mobile device hygiene was a major concern even before the COVID-19 crisis but has now taken on greater importance.”
A CleanSlate UV spokesperson told BetaKit the company is also expecting to close an additional $1 million USD in two weeks, which would bring the Series A to $9.8 million CAD ($7 million USD). The spokesperson noted that the additional funding is expected to come from several angel investors, including Maple Leafs Angels, Angel One, and Niagara Angel members, as well as IdeaRamp and Carrera Investments.
Targeted at doctors, nurses, and visitors in healthcare settings, CleanSlate UV’s chemical-free sanitizer uses ultraviolet light to kill bacteria and viruses on cell phones and other devices. It takes 20 seconds, can disinfect multiple phones per cycle, and requires no user training.
The startup said the COVID-19 pandemic is fuelling high demand for its product, not only in the company’s core healthcare market, but also in food processing, biotechnology, hospitality, and corporate environments.
The Series A financing will be used to expand CleanSlate UV’s mobile device hygiene solutions to new industries and markets during the COVID-19 crisis. CleanSlate UV will also use the funds to commercialize its new software suite that is intended to help hospital staff track when devices were last sanitized.
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“CleanSlate UV has seen incredible growth over the past two years. Mobile device hygiene was a major concern even before the COVID-19 crisis but has now taken on greater importance inside and outside healthcare,” said Taylor Mann, CEO and co-founder of CleanSlate UV. “We are grateful for this validation by our investors and remain committed to meeting today’s accelerated trajectory while expanding to serve new industries and geographies.”
The startup is currently commercializing a software that uses automatic RFID scanning to create compliance reports for facility-owned devices. The software would allow unit managers to see in real-time when facility equipment such as portable electronic medical devices are being sanitized, and which hospital units are not complying with sanitization protocols.
CleanSlate UV was founded in June 2014 out of Queen’s University. Since then, its solution has been deployed by hospitals and food processing facilities in Canada, the United States, and New Zealand. In October 2015, the startup was awarded a $500,000 USD investment by 43North and secured $300,000 in additional funding from 43North for strong trajectory growth.
Image source CleanSlate UV via LinkedIn.
