St. John’s, NL-based healthtech and software startup Sparrow BioAcoustics has closed $10 million CAD in funding as it brings its stethoscope app to hospitals across North America.
The all-equity round was led by Killick Capital and Klister Credit, with participation from Pelorus VC, Brinex, and the family office of former Verafin vice president Kevin Baker. Sparrow says the investment supports its next phase of growth as it rolls out its Stethophone platform to hospitals across North America.
Mark Opauszky,
“It’s about maintaining the momentum we’ve built while continuing to deliver real clinical value where it’s needed most.”
Sparrow BioAcoustics
“This round ensures we can scale responsibly through this critical phase, supporting hospitals and patients with the same focus on quality and outcomes that brought us here,” Sparrow BioAcoustics CEO Mark Opauszky said in a statement. “It’s about maintaining the momentum we’ve built while continuing to deliver real clinical value where it’s needed most.”
Founded in 2019, Sparrow’s Stethophone turns smartphones into what it calls a medical-grade stethoscope. The app includes patented bioacoustics technology that it claims makes heart sounds more audible than medical stethoscopes.
Users can hold their phone to their body, listen, record the sounds of their hearts, and store their examinations in the app. The company says the sound is digitally processed into spectrograms and oscillograms, allowing healthcare providers to zero in on concern areas or unusual sounds.
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Stethophone received clearance for use by both medical professionals and consumers from the United States Food and Drug Administration in 2023, and then from the health authorities in Ukraine and Canada last year.
“In the past year, about 40,000 patients and practitioners have used Stethophone, uncovering thousands of cardiac anomalies that might otherwise have gone unnoticed until later stages of disease,” claimed Dr. Yaroslav Shpak, Sparrow’s co-founder and chief medical officer.
Opauszky told BetaKit in an email statement that Sparrow is now working with most of the key health systems in the United States, focusing on the detection of valvular heart disease.
“We have a high-accuracy, scalable solution and several new developments to bring into the market,” Opauszky said. “Canada is not far behind.”
Sparrow closed $10 million in funding in October 2024, bringing its total funding to date to approximately $23 million. Opauzsky joined Sparrow in 2021, having previously led Toronto-based marketing tech startup PathFactory for nine years. 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.
Feature image courtesy Sparrow BioAcoustics.