Earlier this month, the Dallas Regional Chamber held a panel discussion where a group of corporate relocation experts agreed that companies would still be moving to the region after the pandemic. And there’s a sign that may hold true.
With $7.44 million in grant funding from the Cancer Prevention and Research Institute of Texas and a couple new additions to its leadership, Toronto-based medical device startup Perimeter Medical Imaging announced it would be relocating its headquarters to Dallas.
“We need to work smarter to reduce the reoperation rates for breast conservation surgery,” Dr. Alastair Thompson, one of the investigators working with Perimeter, told Startup Beat. “Using [Perimeter’s technology] to scan the surface… during surgery could be the key to ensuring complete surgery the first time around.”
Perimeter was founded in 2013. The company is working to develop an AI technology called OTIS that would allow surgeons to identify cancer in a patient after a tumor removal surgery. The new funding brings Perimeter’s total to more than $11 million, after it landed a $5 million Series A round led by Roadmap Capital in 2015. EPIC Capital, Northview LifeSciences, Pathfinder Asset Management and Keiretsu Forum Northwest joined in that round.
As part of the move to the Metroplex, Perimeter announced on Tuesday the appointment of Tom Boon as its new CEO and Jeremy Sobotta as its new CFO. Boon joins the company from his previous role as president of Summit Industries. Sobotta joins from his position as head of finance for Stryker. The now Dallas-based company will also be changing its name to Perimeter Medical Imaging AI.
The company is also planning to hire new staff around the state and expand its regional sales partnerships.
Perimeter said work on the AI technology will be a three-year project. It will start by training and testing its algorithms in partnership with Texas pathology labs at MD Anderson, Baylor College of Medicine, UT Southwestern and UT Health San Antonio. Perimeter plans to specifically look at breast cancer patients. The next step in the project will be to test the technology against current standards.
“The new era of tissue imaging using optical imaging platforms… will bring revolutionary changes to breast surgery and breast pathology practice,” Dr. Savitri Krishnamurthy, another investigator working with Perimeter, told StartupBeat.
