News and Press

Bigfoot Biomedical, Inc., a highly anticipated machine learning company founded by people directly impacted by Type 1 Diabetes (T1D), today announced an equity investment from the newly established JDRF T1D Fund, a strategic venture philanthropy fund with a focus on making high-impact, early-stage investments to accelerate commercial development of life-changing therapies for people living with T1D. Terms of the financing are not being disclosed.

“We are thrilled to have a fund associated with the world’s largest nonprofit funder of T1D research as an investor,” said Bigfoot President & Chief Executive Officer Jeffrey Brewer. “Bigfoot is leveraging the work previously done by JDRF to prove feasibility for automated insulin delivery and define a regulatory path for approval by the FDA. The investment in Bigfoot by the T1D Fund helps ensure competition and choice for the community of people who need a better way to live safely and thrive with T1D. JDRF is a partner who supports our vision of automated insulin delivery usable by anyone with T1D, supportable by any doctor, and fully covered by insurance.”

Bigfoot’s smartloop™ automated insulin delivery service seeks to change the paradigm of care for insulin-dependent diabetes by leveraging data, connectivity, automation, and machine learning to lessen the cognitive and emotional burdens on people with diabetes and maximize the leverage of health care providers. The core of the service is a cloud-connected ecosystem for diabetes management, interfacing with wearable insulin delivery and glucose monitoring tools, all accessible through a secure mobile app on a smartphone and delivered as a bundled monthly subscription service.

The Bigfoot team completed its first clinical trial, which included both adult and pediatric participants, in late 2016. The company announced a Series A investment of $35.5 million in October and now eagerly awaits taking Bigfoot into the wild in a pivotal trial anticipated to start in 2017.

About Bigfoot Biomedical, Inc.
Bigfoot Biomedical was founded by those with a personal connection to Type 1 Diabetes and is committed to a service-oriented approach to leveraging data, people, and smart technology in a connected ecosystem intended to deliver improved outcomes valued by people with insulin-dependent diabetes, health care providers, and payers. Learn more at bigfootbiomedical.com. Follow us on Twitter @BigfootBiomed and Facebook.

About JDRF
JDRF is the leading global organization funding type 1 diabetes (T1D) research. Our mission is to accelerate life-changing breakthroughs to cure, prevent and treat T1D and its complications. To accomplish this, JDRF has invested more than $2 billion in research funding since our inception. We are an organization built on a grassroots model of people connecting in their local communities, collaborating regionally for efficiency and broader fundraising impact, and uniting on a national stage to pool resources, passion, and energy. We collaborate with academic institutions, policymakers, and corporate and industry partners to develop and deliver a pipeline of innovative therapies to people living with T1D. Our staff and volunteers throughout the United States and our six international affiliates are dedicated to advocacy, community engagement and our vision of a world without T1D. For more information, please visit JDRF.org or follow us on Twitter.

About T1D Fund
The T1D Fund is a venture philanthropy fund exclusively devoted to finding and funding the best early-stage T1D commercial opportunities to accelerate the delivery of treatments, preventions, and cures to patients. It was created to solve a critical funding gap in the T1D drug and device development pipeline. Through partnerships with private capital, including venture capital, pharma and foundations, the T1D Fund anticipates that it will be able to attract substantially more private investment to the T1D field than occurs today. The T1D Fund will initially focus on artificial pancreas systems, metabolic control, beta cell replacement, prevention, and beta cell restoration therapies, with an exclusive priority on the best commercial opportunities. The T1D Fund will reinvest any realized gains into new investments to further its mission.

Media Contact:
Melissa Lee
mlee@bigfootbiomedical.com
408-514-4413