TORONTO – “With COVID-19 it’s not been an easy time to raise capital.” In virtually the same breath Joshua Liu, CEO of Toronto-based health-tech startup SeamlessMD Inc. credited the pandemic with nudging investors to spend CA$4 million (US$3 million) to grow his company’s cloud-based patient engagement app, boosting a library of digital plans for surgery, cancer and chronic care and adding machine learning-based risk prediction to remote patient monitoring.

Raising more money in the first three quarters of 2020 than in each of the last three full years, the med-tech industry is mirroring that of the biopharma industry, showing an unprecedented amount of financing during what is arguably the most economically disruptive pandemic in a lifetime.

Portable dialysis machine manufacturer Outset Medical Inc. saw its shares soar after the opening of its Nasdaq IPO. The stock rose as high as $61.60 before closing at $60.68, finishing the day with a market cap of nearly $2.5 billion. Trading under the ticker symbol OM, the company priced 8.95 million of its shares at $27 apiece, upsizing its previously reported plans to offer 7.6 million shares between $22 and $24. The offering is set to close Sept. 17.

Oncomfort SA finalized a €10 million (US$11.8 million) series A fundraising round to further develop its Digital Sedation product and pursue international expansion. Debiopharm and Crédit Mutuel Innovation led the round with participation from Wallonia Innovation and Growth and previous investors.