South African 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.
SmartBlade is a novel video laryngoscope that utilises a smartphone as a camera and communications device. An app is loaded onto the smartphone which allows the user to access the camera in the laryngoscope, which in turn allows for video viewing, storage, and transmission.
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 SA 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 told Disrupt Africa.
