- Remote-monitoring startup Podimetrics pulled in a $45 million Series C round in March.
- The company’s tech helps prevent amputations in patients with diabetes.
- Podimetrics partners with health plans to provide its temperature-detecting mat to patients at home.
The
diabetes
-care market is booming. With dozens of
digital-health
companies like Livongo and Omada Health offering solutions for managing the chronic disease, the worldwide market for
type 2 diabetes
was worth $29.8 billion last year, and analysts expect that number to double by 2030.
Podimetrics is tapping into the market from a different angle — preventing diabetic amputations.
Jon Bloom — the CEO of Podimetrics and a former anesthesiologist — said he remembers spending days in the operating room helping surgeons perform amputations. Amputations in diabetic patients make up about 130,000 of the 200,000 total amputations performed in the US each year.
Podimetrics
Bloom and his cofounder David Linders — who is now the chief technology officer at Podimetrics — started the company in 2011 as graduate students at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Sloan School of Management. Together, they set out to create remote-monitoring technology to identify inflammation in the feet of diabetic patients before the patients would need amputations.
In March, the company announced it had raised $45 million in Series C funding. D1 Capital Partners led the round, joined by the Medtech Convergence Fund, an undisclosed strategic investor, and existing investors Polaris Partners and Scientific Health Development. Since its founding, Podimetrics has raised $73 million.
Bloom said the company’s tech, a heat-sensing mat, has been commercially available since 2017. Patients step on the mat for 17 seconds each day, and the mat collects data on temperature changes in the feet, looking for “hot spots” of dying tissue that aren’t receiving proper blood flow.
If the mat detects a persistent hot spot, Podimetrics’ virtual clinical team helps the patient either by providing techniques to help them address it on their own — like avoiding putting weight on the inflamed side for a period of time to allow it to heal — or by directing them to an in-person doctor.
Podimetrics provided Insider with the presentation it used to land the $45 million round. According to a Podimetrics spokesperson, the presentation was edited to remove sensitive or proprietary company information.
