Pittsburgh-based wearable tech startup Apollo Neuroscience Inc. announced the close on its $15 million Series A funding round, which the company said now brings its valuation to over $100 million and its total funding to $21.4 million. It's hoping to use the capital from its Series A to continue building out its product offering, a patented wearable device that aims to help its users relieve stress and improve sleep through the use of finely-tuned and low-frequency inaudible sound waves, which translate to soft vibrations on a user's wrist.
Toronto, Canada-based Noetic Fund — which invests in early-stage psychedelic-based wellness, therapeutic and pharmaceutical companies and is managed by venture capital firm Grey House Partners GP Inc., also Toronto-based — led the startup's funding round.
"At Noetic Fund we invest in innovative therapies that address significant unmet needs within mental health,'' Sa’ad Shah, co-founder and managing partner at Noetic Fund, said in a release. "Apollo Neuro represents a truly disruptive and scalable technology that makes managing stress, sleeping well, and keeping a clear mind easier. We’re excited by the potential of the Apollo wearable to complement new therapies, like psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy, and could not be more proud to partner with the Apollo Neuro team to present an accessible technology that is already changing tens of thousands of lives."
Apollo first launched its wearable product in January 2020 and with just 10 employees. By 2021, the company's headcount doubled to 20, only to double again to 40 by the start of 2022. Many of its workers are remote and not based in Pittsburgh, though its core engineering team of eight employees who focus on hardware development and medical-related work are based locally.
The startup got its genesis in 2014 as a spinout from the University of Pittsburgh following research efforts by husband and wife duo Dr. David Rabin and Kathryn Fantauzzi, who also serve as the company's co-founders as well as its chief innovation officer and CEO, respectively. The product has since completed several clinical trials and has others currently ongoing at universities across the country.
With the infusion of fresh capital, Apollo, named as one of 10 Startups to Watch in 2022 by Pittsburgh Inno, can now set its sights even higher as it plans to roll out additional products and features in the months and years to come.
"The Series A financing helps us to fulfill new products, new features and new ways to experience the product that will be coming out in 2022 and beyond," Fantauzzi said. "It helps us to also scale our teams internally and basically build a better experience for people. Apollo is only going to get better and this funding helps us deliver on that."
While Fantauzzi declined to disclose revenue figures, she said the company has shipped tens of thousands of its units to date, which retail at $349. And even though most of its workforce is outside of Pittsburgh, continuing to build the company in the region is important going forward, Fantauzzi said.
"This was born from research at the University of Pittsburgh, basically the engineering talent, both on the software side and on the medical devices side, as well as the amazing opportunities we had as a result of our connection to the university system in Pittsburgh, really helped facilitate the clinical evidence behind Apollo," Fantauzzi said. "That has been enormously helpful not only for us as a company, but in order to actually disseminate this kind of new technology to consumers. I've always been thrilled to be part of the Pittsburgh community; Pittsburgh really loves Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh really supports Pittsburgh, and that is something that's really unique to that city. We're glad to make Pittsburgh proud."
Apollo's funding raise joins several other Pittsburgh-based startups that have announced eight-figure closes this year.
On March 3, Gecko Robotics, a startup whose robots are capable of climbing critical infrastructure components and capturing data about them with Gecko's proprietary software, announced the close of its $73 million Series C funding round, the region's largest so far this year. That followed the Feb. 1 announcement from Metafy, a Pittsburgh-based video game coaching platform co-founded by CEO Josh Fabian in 2020, which closed on its $25 million Series A capital round. At the start of the year, RoadRunner Recycling disclosed that it reached its $70 million Series D.
