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If you enjoy good potty technique, I think “urine” is a reward. Starling Medical is poised to launch a home urinalysis patient monitoring platform that does not rely on traditional catch containers or dipsticks, called ‘StarStream’.
Now, if this technology sounds familiar, it is. My colleague Haje Jan Kamps talked about his U-Scan for his urine analyzer, Withings, earlier this month when health-focused consumer technology company Withings debuted at his CES. writing. U-Scan is also installed in toilets for home monitoring.
But Starling co-founder and CEO Alex Arevalos told TechCrunch that this is an underserved market. The global urinalysis market is projected to reach $4.9 billion by 2026.
The Houston-based company hopes to prevent hospitalizations for chronic conditions such as urinary tract infections, diabetes and kidney disease, and eventually other conditions that urine tests can detect, such as pre-eclampsia in pregnancy. It is planned to transition to dozens of health conditions.
Working with urologist partners and insurance companies, patients receive a reusable device attached to their toilet and connected to digital health analytics powered by artificial intelligence. If a problem is detected after the patient uses the restroom, Sterling will contact the doctor for more information.
Starling’s StarStream is actually the company’s second iteration. Back in January 2020, Arevalos and co-founders Hannah McKenney and Drew Hendricks were working on a catheter device that would allow patients with neurological bladder dysfunction to urinate at the push of a button.
Using some AI and spectroscopic sensors, the catheter tracks residual urine in a patient’s bladder to detect urinary tract infections that can lead to hospitalization and sepsis.
While considering Y Combinator’s Winter 2022 batch, they had two ideas. Using sensors to pair with the easy-to-use home devices that doctors and patients have been asking for, and then placing those devices in their toilets.
And rather than focusing solely on neurological bladder dysfunction, this would allow us to work in a larger market that includes diabetes and pre-eclamptic kidney disease.
Over the past year, the company has developed devices and technology and has already validated its predictive models through clinical research in partnership with Stanford University. It also raised his $3.4 million seed funding led by Rebel Fund.
Sterling Medical Team Image credit: sterling medical
The round also includes Y Combinator, Innospark Ventures, AI Basis, Capital Factory, Coho Deeptech, Magic Fund, Rogers Family Office, Hendricks Family Office, ReMy Ventures, Centauri Fund, Praxis SCI Institute, Gainels, and a group of angel investors. I participated.
Funding will be used to build an engineering team, develop devices and software, and hire nurses and support staff. Nurses review urinalysis data and apply for reimbursement for remote patient monitoring. The company currently has 10 employees.
In the first quarter of 2023, StarStream’s devices and monitoring services will have Starling’s first enterprise customer, nearly 200,000 urology patients, and $144 million in annual recurring revenue potential, according to Arevalos. will be installed in a large private practice in Texas, where
After getting his first customer up and running, he envisions adding more doctor groups across Texas, with enough patient potential to “grow Sterling into a unicorn without ever leaving Texas.” It even says
Arevalos touts StarStream as “the world’s first FDA-registered service,” and one of the reasons Starling Medical can claim that title is that Withings’ U-Scan was first launched in Europe, and Starling is the first model of its kind. — Analytics and connectivity to care on the backend.
“Without follow-up, the data that’s out there isn’t really useful,” he added. It was about convincing them to let us in. Doing so would improve patient health, generate new revenue for our physician partners, and reduce costs as patients no longer need to be hospitalized.”
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