Santa Cruz, California-based Murj, developer of a digital data collection platform for implantable cardiac devices, has officially emerged from stealth mode. Backed by $4.5 million in venture funding, the company wants to streamline workflow for clinicians grappling with increasingly more data from heart-monitoring devices, both remotely and in the office.
Murj’s SaaS platform aims to replace fragmented, inefficient data management tools for implantable devices like pacemakers, loop recorders and cardioverter defibrillators. Built on what the company describes on its website as “the principle of two clicks,” Murj offers a cloud-based application that consolidates data from all implantable cardiac device types, enabling clinicians to quickly receive, analyze and report transmissions remotely from any secure web browser.
The idea for Murj came from CEO and founder Todd Butka’s years spent working at cardiac rhythm management companies including Guidant and Medtronic. As a former product manager at Apple, Butka was well aware of the current state of technology and design to improve workflow, and was surprised to see the relative lag in implantable cardiac device data management. For instance, many clinicians were still using time-consuming and inefficient data management tools –think CD-based software and even paper-based reporting for mountains of information streaming from multiple devices.
“As a field representative working with electrophysiologists for over a decade, I was dismayed by the inefficiency of monitoring cardiac devices,” Butka said in a statement.“From my experience at Apple, I saw the tremendous potential for well-designed technology to impact the care of patients with cardiac devices. Our solution dramatically improves clinic productivity, while providing clinicians with previously unavailable insight about their clinic and patients.”
In response, Murj was developed to bring about the robust processing, interoperability and usability capabilities needed for smarter patient insights and clinical decision support. Additionally, the platform can be used by an entire staff including doctors, nurses and billing, and it can aide clinicians in identifying new revenue opportunities.
True Ventures led the most recent Series A round, with participation from Social Capital.
“At True, we invest in entrepreneurs that show dedication to long-term market leadership and desire to have a broad, lasting impact; Murj fits this profile perfectly,” True Ventures cofounder Jon Callaghan said in a statement. “As implantable and wearable cardiac devices proliferate, the need for advanced tools to manage the data flowing from these devices is paramount.”
