Scanadu announced on Twitter today that their device, Scanadu Scout, the first medical tricorder has become the most funded Indiegogo campaign with over $1.3 million in funding. Backing so far comes from more than 7,000 funders in 91 countries, including Eugene “Rod” Roddenberry, son of Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry and Apple Co-Founder Steve Wozniak. To date, the campaign has raised over $1,378,545 with only 8 days left in their campaign.
Similar to something seen in Star Trek, Scout is a handheld, disc-shaped sensor that when placed against the forehead for 10 seconds allows you to analyze, track and trend your vital signs, including temperature, blood oxygenation, heart rate, respiratory rate and blood pressure data to an integrated smartphone. The device yields a 99% accuracy rate.
The startup based at the NASA Ames Research Center, has been working on a non-invasive tricorder for over two years. Scanadu is utilizing the crowdfunding campaign as an opportunity collect the data needed to file their application to the FDA for market approval as an over the counter consumer-grade diagnostic tool. In addition to their campaign, Scanadu is a contender for the X Prize Foundation’s medical tricorder contest that offers $10 million to the first party that develops a clone of the Star Trek device that’s capable of capturing health metrics and diagnosing 15 different diseases.
More Healthcare Startups Embracing Crowdfunding
According to Rock Health’s Midyear Digital Health Funding report, the dearth of seed funding has turned early stage health entrepreneurs to crowdfunding platforms such as Indiegogo, MedStartr, HealthFundr, Health Tech Hatch and others as a viable source of raising capital. Findings also show personal health tracking hardware devices have proven to be the most fundable crowdfunding campaigns in comparison to healthcare software/services. Despite these challenges for non hardware startups, there are many advantages to consider crowdfunding in the development of your startup.
Related: 8 Reasons Why Every Health Tech Startup Should Use Crowdfunding
Indiegogo’s Growing Healthcare Dominance
Indiegogo has seen a 2779% increase in health campaigns from Q1 2011-Q2 2013 proven itself to be the premiere platform for healthcare entrepreneurs. The average healthcare campaign on Indiegogo raised $126k. Also, healthcare specific crowdfunding platforms such as Health Tech Hatch and MedStartr have both recently partnered with Indiegogo.
The success of Scanadu’s successful crowdfunding campaign show promise for other early stage healthcare startups to utilize crowdfunding as a valuable option for seed funding.
Visit Scanadu’s campaign for more information.
Related: 4 Key Strategies To A Successful Healthcare Crowdfunding Campaign