AI-enabled Ablacon raises $21.5M in funding round

Amy Baxter | | Health Exec | Economics

Ablacon, a Colorado-based company leveraging AI to develop an advanced mapping system to aid in the treatment of atrial fibrillation, has raised $21.5 million in a Series A funding round, the company announced.

The company’s algorithm uses AI to analyze and visualize the flow of action potentials, or Electrographic Flow, within the heart to find the causes of AFib, according to a press release. The map can be used by physicians in targeted catheter ablation therapy.

"The Ablacon system is a very promising innovation in AFib mapping," Vivek Reddy, MD, the Helmsley Trust Professor of Medicine at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York City, said in a statement. "The early clinical experience indicates tremendous promise of this technology to improve our ability to treat this challenging disease."

The financing was led by Ajax Health, and the funds will advance Ablacon’s technology pipeline and finance clinical trials. Under terms of the funding round, AJAX Health CEO Duke Rohlen will join as chairman and CEO of Ablacon. Peter Ruppersberg, Albacon’s founder and former CEO, will remain as president and chief scientific officer of the company.

"Since our first meeting with Ablacon, we have been impressed with the caliber of the team and the promise of the technology to improve patient care in AFib. I'm thrilled to join the team to advance this exciting project," Rohlen said.

The funding comes at a time when an influx of financing has reached the AI in healthcare sector. Since 2014, more than $1.2 billion in capital investments has flowed to companies with a focus on machine-learning solutions for medical imaging, according to a report released in January 2019.

Amy Baxter
Amy Baxter

Amy joined TriMed Media as a Senior Writer for HealthExec after covering home care for three years. When not writing about all things healthcare, she fulfills her lifelong dream of becoming a pirate by sailing in regattas and enjoying rum. Fun fact: she sailed 333 miles across Lake Michigan in the Chicago Yacht Club "Race to Mackinac."

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