St. John’s, NL-based healthtech and software startup Sparrow BioAcoustics has closed $10 million in seed financing following recent regulatory approvals for its heart monitoring software.
According to a statement from Sparrow, the round was led by Atlantic Canada private equity firm Killick Capital, Klister Credit, and Newfoundland and Labrador-based venture firm Pelorus Ventures.
“The team at Sparrow pushed past numerous scientific, regulatory, and business obstacles to get to this stage.”
Mark Dobbin, Killick Capital
A press release issued by Sparrow this week indicated that the startup raised $13 million. However, CEO Mark Attila Opauzsky told Entrevestor Sparrow closed $3 million “a few years ago,” led by Killick, Klrister, and Pelorus, which reinvested $10 million more recently. BetaKit reached out to Sparrow and Opauzsky for more details on the round, but did not hear back before press time.
Founded in 2019, Sparrow has developed a software application, called the Stethophone, that turns smartphones into what it calls a medical-grade stethoscope. The app includes patented bioacoustics technology that it claims can make heart sounds clearer and more audible than medical stethoscopes.
Sparrow’s app allows users to hold their phone to their body, listen and record the sounds of their hearts, and store their examinations in the app. The company said the sound is digitally processed into spectrograms and oscillograms, allowing healthcare providers to zero in on concern areas or unusual sounds.
CEO Opauzsky previously led Toronto-based marketing tech startup PathFactory. In 2019, he almost lost his life to a sudden case of necrotic fasciitis, leading him to step out of the CEO role and focus on his health.
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On its website, Sparrow said that in 2022 trials conducted at Eastern Health Medical Centre in Newfoundland, 67 percent of doctors reported that the informativeness produced by the Stethophone was better than the leading medical stethoscopes.
“In the last 100 days, normal everyday people successfully made 30,000 medical grade heart recordings,” Sparrow’s chief product officer Nadia Ivanova said in a statement. “People use the system with a 96 percent success rate on their first try.”
In 2023, the United States Food and Drug Administration gave the Stethophone clearance for use by both medical professionals and consumers in the US. The company also obtained health authority clearance in Ukraine this year. It is unclear whether the product is available in Canada. BetaKit has reached out to Sparrow for comment.
Following the publication of this story, on Nov. 5, 2024, Sparrow signaled that a Canadian Stethophone launch was imminent after it received a licence from Health Canada.
“This authorization from Health Canada allows us to offer Stethophone to every Canadian with a heart concern, whether for themselves or someone in their care,” Opauszky said in a statement following the authorization.
In June, the startup integrated artificial intelligence-based analysis into its app, which it demoed at this year’s Collision Conference. Opauzsky told Entrevestor the startup is now focused on building AI models that can detect variations in sound that could indicate heart disease. He said the startup is also focused on increasing the market adoption of the Stethophone.
“The team at Sparrow pushed past numerous scientific, regulatory, and business obstacles to get to this stage,” Killick Capital president Mark Dobbin said in a statement. “They have accomplished things that will lead to helping millions of people in a whole new way.”
UPDATE (11/07/2024): This story was updated following Stepthophone being licenced by Health Canada.
Feature image courtesy Sparrow BioAcoustics.