West Michigan medical device firm lands ‘significant equity financing’

West Michigan medical device firm lands ‘significant equity financing’
AvaSure Inc.’s TeleSitter.

BELMONT — AvaSure Inc. plans to use an equity investment to drive further growth and support product development.

The Belmont-based AvaSure received what it calls “significant equity financing” from Goldman Sachs Asset Management Inc. and Heritage Group, a Nashville, Tenn.-based investment firm focused on health care. Terms of the investment were undisclosed.

AvaSure, which also has a facility in Muskegon, developed a remote video monitoring device that hospitals can easily deploy in infectious environments to allow staff to monitor patients who are in isolation, reducing the frequency of people entering the room. The TeleSitter is now used at 826 hospitals across 48 states and Canada and enables a single hospital employee to monitor up to 16 patients at a time.

“AvaSure’s growth has increased substantially year-over-year, and we are proud to be partnering with top-tier investors who can provide our company with an added bench of expertise as we seek to scale and build on our success,” AvaSure CEO Brad Playford said in a statement. “The COVID-19 pandemic increased both the demand and the acceptance of telehealth solutions. While no one was fully prepared for the changes brought by the pandemic, AvaSure was extremely well positioned with its virtual technology that continuously supports patient care, safety, and outcomes with unmatched reliability and scalability.”

Playford told MiBiz last summer that the TeleSitter has proven useful and helped hospitals significantly reduce patient falls and assaults on care providers. The company at the time had annual revenues of about $50 million and 150 full-time employees.

AvaSure “has a demonstrated track record of innovation and success” since the company was founded in 2008, said Antoine Munfa, managing director at Goldman Sachs.

“We have been extremely impressed by the company’s marquee customer base, the team’s depth of knowledge in telehealth, and the breadth of functionality and scalability of its telehealth platform,” Munfa said.