April 6, 2021
FIZE Medical, Inc. recently closed a Series A financing led by Rapha Capital Management, LLC an investment management firm located in Miami, Florida, through Rapha Capital Investment IX, LLC (an entity managed by Rapha Capital).
RCI IX was joined in the lead by MIG FZ LLC, led by Michael Ingber MD, Director of The Center for Specialized Women’s Health at Garden State Urology, within the Atlantic Health System. This second, final tranche of financing completes FIZE’s Series A financing, initiated with the first tranche closing in May 2020. The total $5.3 million financing will be used to further develop and commercialize FIZE’s novel device, the iUO™, the first accurate, automatic, digital, and cost-effective device to measure urine output in real-time, replacing the current, manually managed, urinometer bag attached to a standard Foley catheter, to be made available to hospitals and physicians worldwide. Rapha Capital’s inaugural first managed VC Fund, Rapha Capital BioVentures Fund I also participated in this financing.
Rapha Capital Management is an investment management firm focused on managing strategic investments in early-stage, non-public biotechnology companies, previously through special-purpose investment vehicles (“SPIVs”).
Rapha Capital was founded by its President, Kevin Slawin, M.D., a successful and experienced oncologic and robotic surgeon. After leaving practice, Dr. Slawin has been serving as a biotech consultant, investor, and founder, focusing on disruptive technologies in oncology, T cells and immunotherapy, and other breakthrough healthcare technologies. He is the founder of Bellicum Pharmaceuticals, Inc., a publicly-traded company listed on NASDAQ, leading Bellicum to a successful $161 million IPO in December 2014.
He also plays a guiding role in several of the investments managed by Rapha Capital in certain companies, serving as a board member at 3DBio Therapeutics, Inc., FIZE Medical, Inc., and Demeetra AgBio, Inc. He served as a board member and interim CEO of portfolio company AsclepiX Therapeutics, Inc. in 2020, engineering their $35 million Series A financing led by Perceptive Xontogeny Venture Fund in mid-2020.
Rapha Capital Management manages thirteen legacy SPIVs, Rapha Capital Investment I – XIII. Rapha Capital Management will be offering alternative asset management services to its inaugural venture capital fund, launching April 15th, 2021, which will be the vehicle for all future investments managed by Rapha Capital Management.
“FIZE’s basic device, the iUO™, by itself is a giant leap forward in medicine, conquering the last frontier inpatient monitoring by digitizing urine output, measured in real-time, and placing it at the physicians’ fingertips,” said Kevin Slawin MD. “FIZE’s vision, to be delivered through its pipeline of follow-on products, the iUO PLUS ™, and iUO DUOFLO ™, is poised to truly transform medicine by adding acute kidney injury (AKI) and shock prediction, core temperature, and intraabdominal pressure monitoring (IAP), fluid balance and diuretic use and monitoring, real-time urinalysis and UTI management, and automated intravesical chemotherapy and continuous bladder irrigation (CBI) therapy to the iUO™’s core capabilities,” he added.
“It’s been gratifying to see how Urologists, including our lead investors Drs. Slawin and Ingber, who understand better than most the optimal management of Foley catheters, respond with such excitement and commitment to our company’s technology and the advances it offers to their patients,” said Dror Zerem, CEO of FIZE Medical.
The COVID 19 pandemic has led to a realization of the need to prioritize technologies that increase the protection of healthcare workers, while improving the care of critically ill patients, and providing enhanced efficiency. The FIZE® iUO™ device addresses all of these goals by reducing the number of times a nurse/healthcare worker needs to enter the room of an infected patient by automating bladder management.
