IESE’s Business Angels Network and a group of other investors have participated in a €500,000 financing round for Dinbeat, a Barcelona-based startup specializing in monitoring devices for pets that hopes to expand into human patients.
It is the second financing round, in convertible notes, for Dinbeat. In addition to IESE’s Business Angels Network, current shareholders, Afinitia, Accelgrow, and other business angels and veterinary professionals took part.
Dinbeat last year launched its Dinbeat UNO, a wireless, wearable device that monitors in real time the health of pets, gathering information on heart rate, temperature and breathing, among other metrics.
The financing will allow the company to expand internationally during 2020, in addition to increasing its marketing, sales and development teams, and advance toward validating its technology for use on humans, working together with the Hospital Germans Trias i Pujol in Badalona.
“With this new round, Dinbeat hopes to consolidate its position in the veterinary sector in 2020, and at the same time open a new line around human health during 2021, once our technology has been approved for human use,” said Talía Bonmatí, CEO and founder of Dinbeat. “Telemedicine is here to stay and we want to lead the change.”
Dinbeat Life, new product developed during COVID-19
Doctors without Borders and the Hospital Germans Trias i Pujol contacted the company in late March amidst the COVID-19 pandemic in order to explore whether the technology could be used for human patients. The contact came through the IQS Tech Factory, IQS’s industrial accelerator, which Dinbeat participated in during 2018.
Dinbeat immediately began work on adapting the technology for human use, creating Dinbeat Life. The device would allow patients to be monitored remotely in different situations, such as in elderly care homes or field hospitals. The device also sends out real-time alerts when a patient requires attention.
Dinbeat has been supported by organizations including CDTI, Enisa, Acció, Barcelona Activa, IQS, UAB, Microsoft for Startups, Google for Startups, Garage + Asia, Esade, Universidad de Murcia, and Animal Biosciences, part of Life Biosciences, a Boston-based group that invests in health and which provided a first round of funding in 2018.