Onera Health, an at-home sleep diagnostics startup spun out of research center imec, has raised $9.3 million in Series A funding. The round led by Jazz Pharmaceuticals and imec.xpand, with additional participation from imec, BOM and other unnamed investors.

WHAT THEY DO

Onera’s in-development diagnostic platform is centered on disposable monitor patches. The product is pitched as an alternative to bulky clinical sensors, as the patches are unobtrusive and can be applied and worn at home.

“For far too long, people avoided searching for those answers because understanding their issues was expensive, inconvenient or unreliable. And nobody enjoys spending hours hooked up to sensors in a sleep lab,” Raphael Michel, CEO and cofounder of Onera, said in a statement. “Soon, thanks to our technology partnership with imec, our medical-grade, disposable patches will accurately diagnose sleep-related ailments in the comfort of a patient’s own bed and using it will be as simple as putting on a band-aid. We’re making sleep diagnosis accessible to many without compromising quality.” 

Onera’s headquarters is in Silicon Valley, although the company also has R&D offices in the Netherlands. In addition to this week’s Series A, the company also closed a seed round last summer.

WHAT IT’S FOR

Although the company did not say specifically how it would be channeling its new funds, the announcement did mention upcoming pilot programs conducted with “leaders in sleep medicine, including pulmonologists, neurologists and psychiatrists, ENTs, pediatricians and the military.”

MARKET SNAPSHOT

The current digital sleep health market is primarily focused on sleep tracking, and usually does so through mattresses or pads, wearables, bedside monitors or smartphone apps. For the most part these products aren’t making claims of clinical or diagnostic accuracy, although some current players are working toward detection and monitoring of sleep apnea.

ON THE RECORD

“We believe the solutions Onera Health are developing could transform diagnostic and treatment-monitoring processes in sleep medicine,” Dr. Jed Black, SVP of sleep and CNS Medicine at Jazz Pharmaceuticals, and an adjunct professor at Stanford University Medical Center, said in a statement. “Onera’s hardware and software innovations, as well as its streamlined service model, have the potential to empower clinicians to provide patients with optimal sleep care.”