Aktiia Raises CHF 6 million to Bring its Cuffless Optical Blood Pressure Monitor to Market

24.03.2020 07:00, Guillaume Tinsel

Aktiia, a Swiss startup that has developed an optical blood pressure monitor at the wrist, just announced today having raised an additional CHF 6 million in funding to bring its product to market. The funding round was led by Redalpine and includes a strategically recruited international investor syndicate.

Aktiia’s technology is based on 15 years of research by its founders. In 2018, Aktiia raised a CHF 4 million Seed Round of funding and the company was incorporated, with the mission to reduce the burden of hypertension. In the past two years, the Aktiia team has translated scientific knowledge into a complete solution for cuffless blood pressure monitoring, using standard optical sensors to take accurate blood pressure readings around the clock without interrupting daily life.



Aktiia’s bracelet and algorithms have now been validated in clinical trials against arterial lines (the gold standard for clinical reference) and in ambulatory settings. Never before has it been possible to measure blood pressure profiles around the clock over long periods of time. This valuable and unique dataset will allow for broader insights into the diagnosis and treatment of hypertension, the largest epidemic of humankind.

Aktiia is in the final steps of taking this new solution to market, pending FDA clearance and CE mark. This CHF 6 million in new funding, led by Switzerland based Redalpine, will fuel Aktiia in achieving these goals. The round includes a strategically recruited international investor syndicate: Translink Capital (Palo Alto, US), Investiere (Zurich, Switzerland), Libra (New York, US), Christian Wenger (Zurich, Switzerland), Sparks Street Capital (Boston, US) and Barbaric Holdings (Montreal, Canada) underpinning the company with a global network and commercialization experience.

In 2019, Aktiia made it to the TOP 100 Swiss Startup Award. “Aktiia’s selection as the #1 new startup of 2019 in the TOP 100 Swiss Startup Awards by Venturelab helped raise our visibility significantly with investors in Switzerland and across Europe. Our final investor syndicate includes strong representation from Swiss investors as well as internationally, and this visibility was very helpful in achieving that result.” Mattia Bertschi, CEO at Aktiia.