Date: Jun 27, 2012 Author: Don Seiffert Source: Mass High Tech (
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Cambridge startup REBIScan Inc., which has developed a handheld device to detect lazy eye in children, has received a $100,000 grant from Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) and a fund created to support CMU alumni, the Open Field Entrepreneurs Fund (OFEF).
Justin Shaka, the company's co-founder, told Mass High Tech that the funding is the company's first private investment. In 2010, it got a $300,000 Small Business Research Innovation grant, he said.
The company was founded in 2009 by Shaka and Dr. David G. Hunter, chief of ophthalmology at Boston Children's Hospital. Shaka was working in finance at Children's at the time, and Hunter had co-invented the Pediatric Vision Scanner (PVS) along with some fellow Johns Hopkins University grads to detect amblyopia, or lazy eye, the leading cause of preventable vision loss in children. According to a statement, the device has been shown to be 98 percent accurate.
Shaka said the company is currently being run out of the founders' two homes, with laboratory space for research and development at Continuum LLC in West Newton. It is seeking seed funding now, he said, up to and including a full Series A round.
Shaka says the company is preparing its application for the device for the FDA, the approval of which takes about three months. He says the company plans to launch the product in early 2013.
For the grant from CMU, REBIScan was selected from among a field of startups that applied to the OFEF, which provides $50,000 in matching funds. Awardees also gain access to other funding sources and personalized mentoring.
Shaka said there are no immediate plans to expand the company. "Once we get through the FDA process we'll have a better idea," he said.
