Funding is part of $18.3M in loans that the Pacifican federal development agency announced this week
Funding is part of $18.3M in loans that the Pacifican federal development agency announced this week
Surrey’s HealthTech Connex, which sells $30,000 portable brain scanners that monitor brain waves, plans rapid expansion thanks to netting a $3.7 million loan from the government.
Pacifican, the dedicated federal economic development agency for British Columbians, is fronting the money.
HealthTech Connex was officially founded in 2013 but was relatively nascent until 2015, when co-founders Ryan D’Arcy and Kirk Fisher developed their concept for a portable brain scanner into a regulatory-approved medical device by 2019.
They then started to generate revenue, which grew to be about $4 million in 2023 and then $5 million last year – enough to hire what is now 45 employees. Profitability, however, remains on the horizon, D’Arcy told BIV.
“This is scaling-up money,” he said. “So we’ve got our initial footholds of success, and now we’re going to scale up to allow for greatly focused and increased commercialization, primarily in the U.S. market.”
He is appreciative for the money because, he said, it is hard to get investors excited about investing in life sciences companies.
“It’s been tough,” he said.
Other entrepreneurs have echoed that sentiment.
Days after Vancouver’s Aspect Biosystems Ltd. landed US$115 million in Series B financing in early January, CEO Tamer Mohamed likely surprised many by telling BIV that he thought the investment climate for biotechnology companies was awful.
“This is the worst funding climate for biotech in an entire generation,” he said. “It’s a bloodbath out there.”
The backdrop of that climate, he said, was what made Aspect landing the new capital so impressive. Aspect has a partnership with pharmaceutical giant Novo Nordisk. It also uses artificial intelligence when it takes material from stem cells to create human tissue that can be implanted into patients to help their livers or pancreases function properly.
As for D’Arcy, his product looks like a large bathing cap, and it has sensors.
His clients tend to be people who work in clinics or hospitals monitoring brain health, as well as researchers and those involved with professional sports teams.
“In medicine you can’t treat what you can’t measure,” D’Arcy said. “[His product] provides a portable, accessible measure that’s objective and sensitive, that helps anyone with a brain condition. That could be neurological examples: concussion and dementia. It could be mental health, and it can actually also be for healthy individuals who want to optimize their brain function.”
HealthTech Connex was one of many B.C. companies that this month had Pacifican confirm a total of approximately $18.3 million in loans.
Other companies included:
- $2.5 million to Salmon Arm-based 4AG Robotics, to scale up its robotic mushroom harvesting technology;
- $5 million to Abbotsford’s EggSolutions Vanderpol;
- $1.8 million to Victoria’s MarineLabs to grow its ocean-data network;
- $3.2 million to Duncan’s Mustimuhw Information Solutions to expand its digital-health platform;
- $921,000 to Victoria’s VitaminLab, to expand its personalized vitamin-supplement company, which uses health data; and
- $1.1 million to Kelowna’s Pledge Resource Managers to scale up production of its smart shower system.
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