Cue raises $7.5M for smartphone-enabled lab tests

By Aditi Pai
05:30 am
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cue2San Diego, California-based Cue, not to be confused with fertility tracker company Clue, raised $7.5 million in a round led by SherpaVentures with participation from existing investor Immortalana.

SherpaVentures has previously invested in tech companies like Coin, DogVacay, and Uber, but this appears to be the firms first digital health investment.

Cue’s product, also called Cue, is a modular at-home lab test that uses a sample of blood, saliva, or mucus to conduct at home versions of five different lab tests. The current lineup includes tests for influenza, testosterone, vitamin D, inflammation, and fertility. The company plans to add more. The device is about the size of a Rubik’s cube, and the cartridges are each about the size of a box of matches, according to the company. 

Information from the device is sent via Bluetooth to a companion app, available on iOS and Android, that offers personalized recommendations to help users improve their health.

“We’re very interested in putting the power of the lab into the consumer’s hands in this new way,” Clint Sever, Cue founder and Chief Product Officer, told MobiHealthNews in May when Cue first launched. “And to allow them to use their smartphone as the hub for this information that brings in all this other data about their activity and their food to provide them this deeper level of molecular data that can really help people make great choices for their lifestyle.”

Cue’s technology is not yet FDA cleared. The company explained in May that it plans to use an investigational device exception to sell some advance copies of the device prior to securing clearance, and then use information from those units for the usability testing required by FDA. That's similar to Scanadu's plans. The company said back in May that it hopes to ship the pre-sold units by spring 2015. They’ll sell for $199, and the eventual retail price will be $300.

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