GraphWear, a company pursuing needle-free approaches to glucose monitoring, has closed a $20.5 million Series B round. This Series B round is a vote of confidence by investors in GraphWear’s approach: to monitor key metrics in the body, like glucose, without breaking the skin at all.
GraphWear Technologies was founded in 2015 by Rajatesh Gudibande and Saurabh Radhakrishnan, who had both completed master’s degrees in nanotechnology at the University of Pennsylvania. Specifically, GraphWear is developing a skin-surface-level wearable made of graphene (more on this material later). The sensor is small, about the size of an Apple Watch — but the key piece of technology is actually housed on the bottom. It’s a thin slice of graphene that fits onto the back of the watch, or onto a sticker that can be worn on the abdomen.
This Series B round, says Gudibande, will be focused on helping the company build upon previous validation studies of the wearable, completing a pivotal trial and submitting for FDA clearance. The round was led by Mayfield, with participation from MissionBio Capital, Builders VC and VSC Ventures.