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Immertec raises $6 million

Margie Manning

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Erik Maltais is CEO of Immertec

Immertec, a Tampa medical technology company, has raised $6 million in a new capital raise.

The funding will be used to hire Silicon Valley tech talent and gives Immertec two years of runway, Erik Maltais, co-founder and CEO, told the St. Pete Catalyst.

Benvolio Group in New York led the round with a seven-figure investment and was joined by local investors, Maltais said.

Immertec, founded by Maltais and Jon Clagg, who is chief technology officer, provides proprietary, real-time virtual reality software for medical device training and sales. Its software allows any physician in the world to instantly connect and train in VR.

The company, which is featured on PitchLyst, has been a rising star in the local technology sector after winning a $100,000 investment from Revolution’s Rise of the Rest Seed Fund during a pitch competition in Tampa last spring. It also placed first in the TiEcon Florida 2019 pitch competition.

This week, Immertec will be one of eight Tampa companies pitching at the 7th annual Startup of the Year competition and Summit in Memphis.

Connections

Immertec has raised a total of $7 million since it was incorporated in Delaware in May, 2017. The latest equity funding round began in July and drew a total of 24 investors, according to an Oct. 10 filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Many of the new investors are physicians, Maltais said.

“They are very important to us because they help us understand the problems and they have many connections. Bringing in the right physicians in different specialties was a strong part of our strategy.”

The Alessi family, which owns Vigo Importing Co. in Tampa, also invested, as did PAR Inc., a Lutz company that publishes psychological assessment products.

The lead investor, Benvolio Group, was co-founded by Lew Frankfort, chairman emeritus and former CEO at Coach Inc. The investment firm focuses on direct investing in early stage disruptive consumer-facing brands.

Immertec will have about 20 staff members on site in Tampa after hiring software engineers using proceeds from the latest funding round.

The company has recruited software engineers from Mozilla, a Mountain View, California nonprofit behind the Firefox browser, as well as from Facebook and from Houzz, an online architecture, design and home improvement community in Palo Alto, California.

“We are constantly innovating and creating new intellectual property. Sitting on the bleeding edge of this space, we were able to bring in some unique talent,” Maltais said.

Immertec will continue to focus on developing medical training products. Maltais wants Immertec to get a foothold in 10 of the top 50 research hospitals in the United States and to expand its own research as well.

“We’ve filed for SBIR [Small Business Innovation Research] funding for grant-based funding, so it’s not company-funded research,” Maltais said. “Over the next year that’s our main goal — to be doing research around the efficacy of our technology.”

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