Providence Ventures Invests in Gauss Artificial Intelligence Technology to Identify Postpartum Bleeding Early
Providence is proud to fund “the future of healthcare”
Renton, WA—Providence Ventures, the investment arm of Providence St. Joseph Health, today announced it has made an investment as part of a Series C $20M funding round for Gauss Surgical. Gauss is the maker of Triton, a mobile technology-based surgical blood loss monitoring system.
“The future of healthcare relies in part on new technologies that have the dual impact of improving care and reducing costs,” says Daniel Galles, partner at Providence Ventures and Gauss board member. “Gauss fits this profile by improving clinical outcomes and reducing costs through innovation in the blood-management space. Triton is a unique platform leveraging computer vision and machine learning software delivered through consumer-grade tablets to solve a multitude of problems, including quantifying blood loss. No one else is doing what Gauss is doing – this is a first-of-its-kind solution.”
Over the last 15 years, preventable maternal deaths and harmful postpartum health complications for mothers have increased precipitously in the U.S. due to undetected hemorrhaging, particularly in cesarean deliveries. Doctors have traditionally relied on their own subjective visual estimates of blood loss by eyeballing the surgical field. This practice is notoriously inaccurate. Attempts to weigh suction canisters and sponges are confounded by the presence of other fluids such as amniotic fluid or irrigation. Triton captures rapid scans of blood-containing sponges and canisters and uses computer vision and machine learning to estimate blood loss with significantly higher accuracy and precision.
“Gauss’ Triton solution is currently deployed at several of our hospitals,” says Galles. “Investing in this technology aligns with our organization’s commitment to improve maternal care by reducing complications from post-partum hemorrhage.”
According to a recent study of 2,781 caesarean section patients published in the American Journal of Perinatology, implementing Triton was associated with significant increases in recognition of maternal hemorrhage and significant decreases in blood product transfusions and hospital length of stay.
“At Gauss, we are leveraging artificial intelligence through machine learning and computer vision technology to give clinicians, for the first time, an objective view of blood loss,” said Siddarth Satish, CEO of Gauss Surgical. “We are delighted to be partnering with Providence Ventures to continue to expand the impact of this technology and are eager to continue our work together to improve not only maternal care but reshape overall operating room capabilities.”
Providence Ventures joins nine other investors contributing to the Series C funding including SoftBank Ventures Korea, the only global early-stage venture capital arm of SoftBank Group that has invested US $600 million across 230 start-up companies, and the Innovation Fund of Polaris Partners, a Boston-based venture capital firm with more than $4.3 billion under management.