How Velano Vascular Is Reducing The Pain And Risks Of Traditional Blood Collection Practices

By Dan Anderson ● May 12, 2019

Velano Vascular, a San Francisco-based vascular access technology pioneer company, announced it has secured $10 million as the initial tranche of growth financing to accelerate the commercialization and the launch of additional novel vascular access solutions.

This initial investment includes participation from strategic investor Intermountain Healthcare, former Becton Dickinson chairman and CEO Edward Ludwig, Salesforce founder Marc Benioff, former Baxter International’s chairman and CEO Robert Parkinson, Kapor Capital, and several other undisclosed investors.

Including this financing, Velano’s total investment is now at more than $37 million from a mix of healthcare companies, health systems, industry leaders, and venture capital firms.

“We are thrilled to welcome new and returning investors as we fuel our transformative efforts to meet the commercial demand for PIVO and a family of novel solutions,” said Velano CEO Eric M Stone. “Blood collection is a universal issue and PIVO will ultimately touch every human on the planet. We are excited to expand our family of supporters as we build production capacity in the United States, enlist new hospital partners, and realize our vision for a one-stick hospitalization.”

Intermountain’s investment in Velano previously collaborated with Velano Vascular as a partner for testing, refining, and piloting its needle-free PIVO technology. After hundreds of thousands of blood draws, Intermountain became the first health system in the U.S. to deploy PIVO systemwide as a standard of care.

“As the first health system in the U.S. to bring PIVO to our inpatient populations, we have witnessed the many positive impacts of Velano’s vision for a one-stick hospitalization firsthand,” added Intermountain Healthcare president and CEO Marc Harrison. “We are thrilled to deepen our commitment to Velano and help deliver a new, more humane standard of care for all patients.”

Part of the funds will be deployed towards a state-of-the-art manufacturing line that is currently under construction in the U.S. And the new facility is going to begin production in 2019 in order to meet growing health system demand for Velano’s needle-free blood collection solutions.

Over one billion inpatient blood draws occur around the world every year, which informs nearly 70% of all medical decisions. But this procedure is made more difficult and less efficient through the use of needles — which is a process that is further complicated by the rising number of Difficult Venous Access (DVA) patients.

Fortunately, Velano’s award-winning PIVO needle-free blood collection device and its family of vascular access products are combating the urgent challenge of vascular access globally. And last year, Velano expanded the use of its blood collection technologies to 10 states and to dozens of U.S. hospitals.