Baby sock monitoring company Owlet Baby Care announced the closing of a $24 million Series B funding. Led by Trilogy Equity Partners, the round had participation from existing investors, including Broadway Angels, Eclipse Ventures, Pelion Venture Partners and Enfield Ventures. The new investment adds to the almost $21 million the company has raised through previous seed and Series A funding rounds.
The supplementary funding will help the company speed up its growth by launch additional products, continue its expansion globally, and make the product accessible to more families.
In a statement, Owlet CEO and co-founder Kurt Workman hinted that the company may be planning to not only expand beyond its $300 Smart Sock 2 but also create new offerings with better price points.
“As a company of parents, it is important to us to bring innovative technology into a family’s everyday life. This new round of funding will enable us to expand our product line, looking at ways we can support the health and wellness of families at all stages, from pregnancy on, as well as increase the brand’s availability internationally and improve our accessibility and affordability,” said Workman. “We are very grateful for the continued support of our investors Trilogy Equity Partners, Eclipse Ventures and Broadway Angels, who help make achieving our big vision and mission possible.”
Owlet, a venture-backed startup, is well-known as the maker of Smart Sock baby monitor. The company’s pulse oximetry technology monitors a baby’s heart rate and oxygen levels while sleeping. With two new products set to be released in 2018, Owlet continues to focus on healthcare technologies that provide parents with the right information at the right time.
Pulse oximetry is a noninvasive method for monitoring a person’s oxygen saturation. A sensor device is placed on a thin part of the patient’s body, usually a fingertip or earlobe, or in the case of an infant, across a foot. Back in 2013, Workman and his partners started working on a mechanism to adapt pulse oximetry technology to be wireless and effective for an infant.
The team became successful in many ways, first by winning several entrepreneurial competitions that include cash prizes. These cash prizes helped the company fund a prototype that led to ultimately amassing $2 million in seed funding to launch the product in the fall of 2015.
The latest version monitors heart rate and oxygen levels while connected to an in-home monitor that transmits warnings if levels move close to unsafe zones and can stream the data in real time to a smartphone app.
“Over the past few years, we’ve had the opportunity to witness the impact that Owlet’s Smart Sock has made in the lives of countless families, as they’ve created a new category in infant home monitoring while placing the power of information into the hands of parents,” said Amy McCullough, managing director at Trilogy Equity Partners, who will join Owlet’s board of directors in connection with the financing.
