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Interview with Luxsonic Technologies CEO Mike Wesolowski
Luxsonic Technologies is ready to accelerate its growth and start positively impacting healthcare globally with its immersive technology solutions. Now, after winning the Startup TNT Investment Summit V Finale, Luxsonic is poised to expand its team and reach.
We spoke with Luxsonic Technologies CEO Dr. Mike Wesolowski about what winning the Startup TNT Investment Summit V Finale means to him, how Luxsonic has grown since the launch of SieVRt, its first all-in-one VR radiology suite, and what’s next for this innovative company.
Congratulations on winning the Startup TNT Investment Summit V Finale! What does this win mean to you?
Thank you! First of all, it's validation of a lot of the work we've been doing over the last several years. We’ve been huddled head down working away and always knew that we had an amazing product that is going to transform healthcare and it's very validating to see the investment community rally around the idea and the concept of improving access to radiology services.
For our company, this win allows us to scale just a little bit faster. We're going to be able to bring on a full-time sales person and really drive product growth and start scaling across Canada and the U.S. We're extremely fortunate to have won — there's great competition and amazing companies creating lots of different products.
We had the pleasure of speaking with you in March 2022 about all the work Luxsonic is doing, especially with launching SieVRt in Saskatchewan. How has Luxsonic grown since we last spoke?
That’s a fantastic question. In Saskatchewan, we’re continuing our work and our first pilots are finishing up. Specifically, our work with Dr. Burbridge at the University of Saskatchewan (USask) and Royal University Hospital has finished up and they are some really great results that will be shared soon from that first trial.
We've expanded quite a bit across North America and we've been growing across Canada and the U.S. and now have customers in Florida, North Carolina, Cleveland and Massachusetts. There’s been the start of growth and now we're really trying to accelerate that growth.
In addition to your work with Dr. Burbridge at USask, what impacts are you seeing Luxsonic’s products have on the companies and organizations working with them?
There’s some awesome work we've been doing with Atrium Health Wake Forest Baptist in North Carolina connecting radiologists from Wake Forest Baptist to radiologists in Ecuador. In developing countries, there's often a lack of specialists for radiology. While they may have equipment, like MRIs and CTs, they don't have the people to be able to review those images.
One thing SeiVRt allows us to do is break down those international borders and, in real time, connect radiologists together from anywhere in the world so that they can consult with each other and impact healthcare around the world globally.
We're seeing fantastic results from that project because they are able to collaborate much more efficiently and improve patient care and they're going to be expanding on that project across Ecuador. That's a hugely positive application.
Similar problems exist in the province, so if we can connect North Carolina to Ecuador, we can connect Saskatoon to La Loche and really make an impact in radiology and patient care. We're hoping that with this announcement from Wake Forest Baptist, we can work with more institutions in Canada and really start talking about northern healthcare in a meaningful way.
Absolutely, that's incredible. It's exactly your vision that you spoke about in March. Congratulations!
Thank you! It's super exciting. We've had our first trial at Cleveland Clinic wrapped and we're talking about expanding that project into a full integration and looking at different ways they can use SieVRt collaboratively for medical education. Our work at Massachusetts General Hospital is continuing and they’re already looking at expansion and scaling our technology across health systems now as opposed to single institutions.
That’s very exciting. You mentioned accelerating the growth of Luxsonic. How will this StartupTNT investment funding impact Luxsonic?
We’re really focused on revenue generation right now because up until this point, I’ve been our main salesperson. We’ve brought on a business development intern and with the new funding from StartupTNT, we’ll be bringing on a senior salesperson from the medical device industry to really start driving sales across North America and additional marketing support.
Why did you decide to participate in the Startup TNT Investment Summit?
It was time. We're at a place in our product development and product launch where I had time to lift my head up. We've always wanted to work within the Saskatchewan community — whether that's community investors, the tech community, innovation community — and we've been part of it, but we've just been so busy building that now that we've gotten to product launch, it's a great time to start thinking about transitioning away from fully build mode to sales mode and really growing the company through sales and revenue.
And the StartupTNT Investment Summit was a good opportunity to bring that to light?
Yeah, absolutely. I'd learned about StartupTNT from a few different people and Mike Wolsfeld [Senior Manager of Business Development at Innovation Place] first introduced me to the idea of StartupTNT. I met Jesse and started learning more about the vision for StartupTNT and really thought it would be great to participate. We certainly weren't expecting to win, but we knew we had a good shot.
I think it's a fantastic community that they've built. It’s very tech savvy and they understand the industry and are really trying to do smart investments, which I value quite a bit.
Why do you think Luxsonic’s work resonated with investors?
I think we've done a lot to establish our expertise and really deep knowledge of the field that we're in. We’re all experts in healthcare and immersive technologies. This is our bread and butter. This is what we do and we've been doing it well since 2017. I think the strength of our team, our intellectual property and everything we've been able to accomplish without taking funding really resonated.
This is our first foray into equity investments. Earlier this year, we had another angel group invest in us from the U.S. and radiologists have been testing SieVRt and helping us refine the product. But this was the first time that we've gone out to the investment community as a whole and said this is what we've been building and this is who we are. We've put together a phenomenal international team, including former executives from Philips Healthcare and doctors and researchers who've worked within the health industry.
I think the strength of our product, idea and team gave us a little bit of an edge in the end.
That all sounds incredible and like there’s lots of exciting stuff happening for Luxsonic and on the horizon! Before we go, is there anything else that you'd like to add?
Yes. We're starting to see much more success now out of Saskatchewan, but we don't want to miss opportunities here. We’d love to work with organizations and companies, like the Saskatchewan Health Authority, to improve remote and rural access to radiology in this province. So reach out to us! We’d love to partner and help improve access to healthcare for everyone.
