Advancing Next-generation, Intelligent Hearing Aids and Custom Ear Devices
Cambridge, MA, September 16, 2010 - Lantos Technologies, Inc. today announced it has closed on $1.6 million in a Series A financing. Catalyst Health Ventures led the round, which was joined by additional investors Excel Venture Management and Mass Medical Angels. Lantos' novel 3D imaging technology provides fast, accurate and minimally invasive digital mapping of the human ear canal, enabling the development of comfortable, custom fit audio devices such as hearing aids, earphones and noise-canceling devices.
"Lantos is primed to revolutionize the way people experience hearing aids and custom devices for ears," said Shahid Azim, CEO of Lantos Technologies. "We are fortunate to have a strong, experienced team and financial backing from a solid group of venture partners. The Series A financing will be used to complete product development and enable the market for all types of extended wear hearing devices with a more natural fit."
"Lantos' breakthrough imaging technology has the potential to greatly enhance the performance of in-ear communication devices in multiple markets. The technology, which enables precise fitting of hearing devices to the dimensions of the ear canal, promises to provide huge benefits to millions of people suffering from hearing loss, and also opens up new market opportunities in customized user interface for many everyday devices. Catalyst is thrilled to lead this financing and to help bring this exciting product to market," said Darshana Zaveri, Principal at Catalyst Health Ventures.
"Lantos' scanner provides important technological improvements that may address multiple markets within the audiology field, including hearing aids, custom earphones, military, hearing protection and related diagnostic applications," said Rick Blume, Managing Director at Excel Venture Management. "Additionally, this technology holds potentially much broader imaging applications beyond ear canal imaging, which makes Lantos a strong fit for Excel's investment focus on companies with transformative technologies that address broad markets within, and beyond, healthcare."
"We believe that our unique imaging approach stands to change the way people experience custom ear devices and the new data captured will drive product innovation in the industry for years to come," said Doug Hart, inventor of the technology, Director and Founder of Lantos and Professor of Mechanical Engineering at Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Lantos Technologies was previously recipient of the prestigious innovation grant from MIT's Deshpande Center, which provided the initial seed capital for primary research.
About Lantos Technologies
Lantos Technologies is developing the world's first intra-aural 3D scanner, which has applications across multiple consumer markets. Lantos' novel 3D imaging technology provides fast, accurate and minimally invasive mapping of the human ear canal, enabling the development of comfortable, custom fit audio devices such as hearing aids, earphones and noise-canceling devices. Discovered and developed in the lab of MIT professor Douglas Hart, the ERLIF (Emission Re-absorption Laser Induced Florence) technology is a unique way of capturing 3D, and the intra-aural scanner will be its first application in the medical imaging field. The method eliminates the uncertainties associated with manual fits and offers a precise custom fit to the ear canal's dimensions, bringing a natural fit experience to custom-made ear products.The company plans to jointly develop products and services based on its 3D imaging platform.
About Catalyst Health Ventures
Catalyst Health Ventures is an early-stage venture capital firm targeting technology solutions applied within the health care and life science industries. At the core of its strategy is a committed, hands-on approach to working with management and syndicate partners to build successful companies. Our disciplined investment process leverages both intellectual and financial capital to originate deals, cultivate opportunities, and realize the full potential of emerging ventures in the health care and life science marketplace. For more information on Catalyst Health Ventures, visit: www.catalysthealthventures.com.
About Excel Venture Management
Excel Venture Management builds companies that apply transformative life science technologies to solve problems in healthcare and beyond. The Excel investment portfolio is balanced across healthcare IT and services, diagnostics, and medical devices, plus life science platforms that address adjacent markets including energy, chemicals, defense and agriculture. The majority of the team's prior investments, which include some of the world's premier healthcare and life science companies, are thriving and over half have achieved successful exits generating billions in value. www.excelvm.com.
About Mass Medical Angels
Mass Medical Angels (MA2) is a seed stage investor group exclusively focused on life science and healthcare investments. Our mission is to bring more clinical tools to the marketplace, while attaining superior returns for our investors. To do this, we provide financing and mentoring to early-stage life-science companies so that they can obtain further funding, reach positive cash-flows or get acquired. MA2 members are carefully vetted for their deep expertise around the health sciences. Many of them have been researchers, clinicians, venture capitalists, executives, consultants, engineers, bankers or attorneys. They bring a willingness to support early stage companies to further our mission. In addition, we draw on our deep relationships with the institutions in Boston healthcare supercluster, the leading healthcare innovation center in the world. They provide additional resources, including deal flow, expertise and advisors for the companies we work with. www.massmedangels.com/.
