Australian medical robotics company Vexev has announced it has raised US$6 million in new funding to accelerate the path to US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) 510(k) clearance and US commercialisation of VxWave, its robotic tomographic ultrasound platform, designed to improve access to standardised vascular imaging. Vexev’s total funding to date exceeds US$19 million.
VxWave combines robotics, artificial intelligence (AI) and ultrasound imaging to automate vascular ultrasound acquisition. The platform is being developed for upper-limb imaging, with dialysis vascular access as its initial application, where patients require frequent vascular monitoring and healthcare providers face increasing demand for efficient, standardised imaging.
The announcement follows successful results in multicentre clinical study with US Renal Care, one of the nation’s largest dialysis providers, showing early clinical validation of VxWave in routine dialysis clinic workflows.
During the multicentre study, the VxWave demonstrated a 94% scanning success rate for autonomous vascular imaging by non-specialist clinical staff, with the potential ability to standardise vascular imaging designed to improve consistency and potentially decreasing time to diagnosis and treatment.
“We believe high-quality vascular imaging should be available wherever patients receive care, not only when a specialist is available,” said John Carroll, co-founder and CEO of Vexev. “We are starting with dialysis patients because the clinical need is clear, but our vision is much broader: to build an autonomous imaging platform that helps clinicians make faster, more consistent and more informed decisions across vascular disease.”
Beyond dialysis vascular access, Vexev intends to expand its autonomous imaging platform into additional vascular disease applications like cardiovascular and peripheral artery disease, while building the clinical evidence needed to support future AI-enabled decisions.
The fundraise round included participation from existing investors Blackbird Ventures, Neotribe Ventures, Startmate and Horizon, together with new investors TreeArc Investment Group, TEN13, Bioshore Ventures and Alumni Ventures. Funding will support regulatory activities, manufacturing scale-up and commercialisation.
“Having worked closely with Vexev for several years, I have seen the development of its impressive robot- and AI-based techniques for vascular imaging,” said Anupam Agarwal (Marnix E Heersink School of Medicine at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, USA) and past president of the American Society of Nephrology (ASN). “The company’s initial focus on dialysis vascular access addresses an important challenge for patients and providers, and I believe this technology has the potential to bring meaningful innovation to dialysis patients with vascular access challenges.”
