13 Million Invested in Supporting Phlebotomist-On-Demand

A Virginia company that draws blood on demand wherever patients are — at home, at work, or in their doctor’s office — just raised $13 million to expand and improve its technology, according to a company statement.

Iggbo, based in Richmond, Virginia, employs 8,000 phlebotomists to fan out across 120 cities in the U.S., collect patients’ blood, and dispatch it to 3,000 specialty laboratories for testing. The company has relationships with conventional and telemedicine providers, and also has offices in Cleveland and San Francisco.

Iggbo initially raised a total of $6 million in two rounds of fundraising. Heritage Group, a healthcare-exclusive, venture capital firm based in Nashville, Tennessee, led the $13 million Series A financing round. Iggbo will use the new funding to develop its technology (including voice recognition), hire more employees, and expand sales and marketing efforts with diagnostic laboratories, health systems, providers, retailers, and payers.

It sounds a little like Theranos, the ill-fated Silicon Valley blood-testing company that is under federal investigation and was just spurned by Walgreens. Iggbo doesn’t promise to perform multiple tests with a single drop of blood, like Theranos did with its proprietary Edison technology. But Theranos was counting on operating in-store testing facilities in addition to its own retail sites. An Iggbo spokesman declined to comment on any similarities to Theranos.

Iggbo co-founders Dr. Shaiv Kapadia, Mark Van Roekel, Nuno Valentine started developing the company’s on-demand technology in 2014 and opened for business last year, according to CEO Valentine. Providers can order Iggbo tests through electronic medical records, through a company Internet portal for laboratories, or even by summoning with the touch of a button an Iggbo phlebotomist who circulates through their office building, Valentine said. Patients and laboratories can access their own portals through the company website, Valentine said.

Iggbo aims to refine the process of drawing and testing blood, and to improve patient compliance with providers’ orders. About 30% of patients don’t follow through on those orders, according to a widely quoted 2008 study by the Imperial College of London.

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