Voxello Awarded Multiple Grants

CORALVILLE, Iowa--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Voxello, developer of technology that allows hospitalized patients to overcome communication barriers, today announced that it has received multiple grants.

Voxello has received grants from the Philadelphia Pediatric Device Consortium (PPDC), an SBIR Phase 2 award from the National Institute of Nursing Research (NINR) and the Iowa Economic Development Authority (IEDA).

The PPDC grant will support enhancements to the noddle™ and noddle-chat™ for the pediatric population. Voxello has been developing the noddle™ and the noddle-chat™ speech generating app to address the communication barriers faced by hospitalized patients. The noddle uses patented technology to detect the smallest intentional gesture and allow patients to access the nurse call system and control the noddle-chat app. The app was designed to allow patients who are unable to talk, the ability to express their feelings, needs and desires and better participate in their care. The award was for $44,900 in funding.

The SBIR grant will allow Voxello to develop additional sensors thereby expanding the set of patient gestures that can be used to control the noddle. It will also allow Voxello to develop customized vocabularies for the noddle-chat app to meet the needs of young children as well as non-English speaking patients. This award was for one million six thousand ($1,006,000) in total funding.

Both grants will allow Voxello to conduct further clinical trials with a variety of patient populations.

“Our success in securing grants demonstrates that the approach we have been taking to improve patient care has merit. These grants will enable us to more quickly bring our technology to market and address the consequences of communication barriers that add billions of dollars to healthcare costs,” said Richard Hurtig, Chief Scientific Officer of Voxello.

The third grant is from the Iowa Economic Development Authority (IEDA) through the Science Technology Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) Internship Program. The STEM Internship Program awards grants to Iowa-based companies in hopes of retaining interns as full-time employees in Iowa upon graduation. This funding, up to sixteen thousand fifty ($16,050) will allow Voxello to host engineering interns over the coming years.

Victoria Dahlen, Design and Quality Engineer for Voxello added, “Our interns are a crucial part of the team and the product development process. This funding gives Voxello the opportunity to hire more STEM interns which in turn creates more opportunities for Iowa-native students to gain real-world work experience in their field of study. These internships help students realize their interests, develop goals and grow on a professional level as well as prepare them for industry post-graduation.”

These awards in conjunction with the recent IEDA Propel award for $250,000, brings total non-dilutive funding to Voxello just under two million ($2,000,000). “Not only does this funding accelerate our development and clinical trial efforts, it also is a significant third party endorsement of the importance of our mission at Voxello,” said Rives Bird, CEO of Voxello.

Voxello has concluded one round of private equity financing earlier this year and is in the process of opening a second round in the 4^th quarter of this year as Voxello prepares for the full launch of the noddle^TM.

About Voxello

Voxello provides solutions to address the communication barriers faced by hospitalized patients. The company’s first product, the noddle^TM, detects the small voluntary gestures that patients are able to produce and gives the patients control of the nurse call and speech generation devices. For more information about Voxello, please visit www.voxello.com.