COMMUNITY
CAPITAL
Vital View Technologies
$5.5M
RAY FRASER Co-Founder & CEO
Investment announced Dec. 7, 2023. An additional $900,000 put Vital View over its subscription cap, demonstrating high demand. Pier 70 Ventures and the Notre Dame Pit Road Fund led the seed extension round, with participation from RedRock Equity Group and Elevate Ventures.
South Bend, IN Founded in 2021
PITCH: Medical IoT company developing sensor-based, connected solutions. Vital View’s congestive heart failure monitoring platform features a proprietary contactless, noninvasive at-home medical monitor that tracks total body fluid change over time to inform patient care plans and prevent hospitalizations.
In August 2023, Ray Fraser was in the right place at the right time. At RALLY, the two-day innovation experience launched by Elevate Ventures in 2023, Elevate’s VP of Hardtech Nicholas Kuhn introduced Fraser to a representative from a family office in Mishawaka. Less than three months later, this introduction to RedRock Equity Group translated into a strategic investment in a $5.5 million oversubscribed fundraising round that Vital View announced in December 2023. “If it weren’t for RALLY, I’m not sure if I’d be here with a happy face right now. That experience came up huge for us,” Fraser says. Though they were located just miles from one another, Vital View and RedRock had never crossed paths. The Elevate community brought them together. At RALLY, Fraser pitched Vital View before a crowd of hundreds before personally showing their future investors a prototype and getting to know one another. In September, Vital View formally pitched RedRock, leading to a thorough due diligence process headed by Vital View’s CoFounder and COO Cassandra Adams. Right before Thanksgiving, Vital View got the big news: RedRock was in. “Because they already had a relationship with Nick, we were able to develop the relationship the right way. We got to meet them in person and get to know each other. Once it was time for a formal pitch and due diligence, things moved quickly,” Fraser says. This kind of efficiency is fueled by trust and allows startups to move faster and smarter. Vital View first became part of the Elevate community in 2020, when Kuhn advised the team on its original business roadmap. Elevate then invested in Vital View’s first seed round in 2021. Recently, Kristin Eilenberg, Elevate’s VP of Life Sciences and Healthcare, has guided the startup ahead of its FDA submission. “One thing I love about our relationship is Elevate’s willingness to provide the time and feedback we need to move things forward," Fraser says. That is the power of community.
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ACCELERATION
All About Access For founders to advance, they must have opportunities like the ones Elevate actively creates. Vital View is poised to reach its 2024 milestones — finalizing the first-gen product, completing pivotal clinical studies and submitting to the FDA in 2025 — in part because they have found strong subject matter experts and accessed enough capital to allow their roadmap to run on all cylinders.
One thing I love about our relationship is Elevate’s willingness to provide the time and feedback we need to move things forward. — RAY FRASER, VITAL VIEW TECHNOLOGIES