Bigfoot Steps Up Its Funding Game with Abbott's Help

The little company with a big name – and big ambitions in the diabetes space – just closed a big financing round.

Milpitas, CA-based Bigfoot Biomedical has now raised more than $90 million, including the $55 million series B round that it just closed. The company also added Abbott to its list of investors, which doesn't come as a complete surprise, given that the two companies began working together last summer to develop diabetes management systems, integrating the Abbott FreeStyle Libre glucose-sensing technology as the centerpiece for glucose monitoring capabilities within Bigfoot's ecosystem of insulin delivery solutions.

Bigfoot said the new funds will support ongoing product development, clinical trials, and commercialization for its systems, which includes Bigfoot Loop, an infusion pump-based closed-loop automated insulin delivery system, and Bigfoot Inject, a connected insulin pen-based decision support system for people on injection therapy.

The company's other investors include Janus Capital Management, Quadrant Capital Advisors, Cormorant Asset Management, Senvest Capita, Senvest Management, Visionnaire Ventures, JDRF T1D Fund, and T1D Exchange also participated in the financing.

Despite its status as a startup, Bigfoot Biomedical already has gained wide recognition in the diabetes management space because each of the company's founders has a personal connection to the disease. That is essentially what drove the company to choose Abbott as its partner. 

“Abbott is a company that thinks about that person, thinks about my son and making his life better, and Bigfoot is on top of that and going to do more,” Jeffrey Brewer, president and CEO of Bigfoot Biomedical, told MD+DI in an interview last fall. “But we need more of that in healthcare. It’s not what the doctor imagines the patient needs that is the answer, it’s what the person can live with and use and feel good about.”

With its Loop and Inject services, the company seeks to reduce the burden of living with insulin-requiring diabetes and to maximize the leverage of health care providers through data, connectivity, automation, and artificial intelligence.