E-health startup, SmartBlade has raised a ZAR9.5 million (US$635,000) funding round from the Savant Venture Fund to take its solution to market.
What SmartBlade is All About
SmartBlade is a video laryngoscope that uses a smartphone as a camera and communications device.
Once SmartBlade app is loaded onto the smartphone, it will allow the user to access the camera in the laryngoscope, which in turn allows for video viewing, storage, and transmission. In other words, the app will help users to see videos of their larynxes.
A laryngoscope is an instrument for examining the larynx, or for inserting a tube through it.
The company has been incubated at the Cape Town-based hardware incubator Savant over the past few years and has now become the first recipient of investment from the Savant Venture Fund, launched after the incubator itself raised funds, from the South African SME Fund.
SmartBlade will use the investment, which comes in the form of a convertible note, to take its innovation to market and deliver on the global interest and demand it says it has seen for the device.
“Following the successful launch of the video laryngoscope, the company will look to utilise its smartphone endoscopy expertise to bring associated medical devices to market,” Savant venture fund manager Nick Allen said.
Charles Rapulu Udoh
Charles Rapulu Udoh is a Lagos-based Lawyer with special focus on Business Law, Intellectual Property Rights, Entertainment and Technology Law. He is also an award-winning writer. Working for notable organizations so far has exposed him to some of industry best practices in business, finance strategies, law, dispute resolution, and data analytics both in Nigeria and across the world.