Local VC firms invest $8M in Karmanos Cancer Center spin-off

A handful of local venture capital firms both big and small have played a major part in helping Detroit-based start-up Delphinus Medical Technologies raise $8 million in venture capital.

Farmington Hills-based Beringea, Michigan's largest venture capital firm, led the group of local VC firms, which included Arboretum Ventures, North Coast Technology Investors, and the University of Michigan-based Wolverine Venture Fund, which are all based out of Ann Arbor. Delphinus is a spin-off of the Karmanos Cancer Institute in Detroit. Its principal product is SoftVue, an alternative to mammography for breast cancer detection, risk evaluation, and treatment monitoring.

"It's a good example of a strong local firm, like Arboretum, teaming up with us to lead a group of local investors," says Michael Gross, managing director for Beringea.

The $8 million will allow Delphinus to hire approximately 20 staff this year. The positions will be mostly focused on technical engineering systems and software development to push SoftVue toward commercialization. The firm hopes to grow to 50-100 employees within the next 3-5 years.

SoftVue submerges the breast in warm water while an ultrasound ring surrounds the breast and captures detailed, three-dimensional images with sound waves. The results are similar to MRI, but the procedure takes only a few minutes and costs much less.

SoftVue can effectively differentiate benign from malignant masses in breasts, helping eliminate false positives and reducing unnecessary biopsies. It can also accurately measure breast density, a known risk factor for developing breast cancer, as well as detect many early stages of cancer in women with dense breast tissue, which is often not picked up by mammography.

Source: Michael Gross, managing director for Beringea
Writer: Jon Zemke