SAN FRANCISCO, August 11, 2020 — Bodyport, the digital health company focused on the detection and management of heart disease, today announced the close of an $11.2 million Series A investment round. Boehringer Ingelheim Venture Fund (BIVF) led the round and was joined by existing investors Playground Global, Initialized Capital, Y Combinator and Hardware Club, as well as new investors Kapor Capital and Regah Ventures. The investment brings Bodyport’s total funding to $15.8 million and will help the company deepen key health partnerships and support the launch of a virtual cardiac clinic that brings intelligent interventions to its remote monitoring technology.

Co-founders and biomedical engineers Corey Centen and Sarah Smith founded Bodyport to develop a novel biomarker platform that could detect early signs of cardiovascular disease, incorporating proprietary sensor technology into a bathroom scale form factor. Rather than relying on wearables, the Bodyport Scale is designed to detect cardiac signals and biomarkers through a user’s feet, powering algorithms that have the potential to predict risk and enable optimized, early interventions.

“Despite the fact that cardiovascular disease is largely preventable, it remains the leading global cause of death,” said Bodyport co-founder and CEO Corey Centen. “We’re focused on changing the way patients and care teams manage heart disease. By shifting the technology patients can access from a clinical setting to their own home, we are aiming to predict changes in health status before a hospital visit becomes necessary. Ultimately, this early detection could help push care delivery away from its reactive model, reducing costs and drastically improving the quality of life for patients dealing with chronic disease.”

The company is initially focused on improving the management of heart failure. Heart failure is a leading cause of hospitalizations — approximately one million per year — and associated healthcare spending of nearly $35 billion per year. By transforming cardiac monitoring into a simple daily step, Bodyport is aiming to augment the current standard of heart failure care by enabling more frequent monitoring, enhanced patient assessment, and earlier interventions by care teams.

Bodyport also announced today a collaboration with Brigham and Women’s Hospital focused on furthering technology to prevent avoidable hospitalizations and to help discover and develop novel diagnostic biomarkers for the early detection of cardiovascular disease.

“The focus on the scale form factor captures some of the most valuable real estate available in biometric collection and biological assay development,” said Dr. Calum MacRae, Vice Chair for Scientific Innovation, Brigham and Women’s Hospital. “We look forward to our collaboration with Bodyport, and to advancing research in this area.”