Venice-Based GigXR Gets Backing to Update Medical Training with Virtual Reality

GigXR, a Venice-based startup using virtual reality to train people in medical procedures, has partnered with and received an investment from Oregon-based health care provider Northwest Permanente to develop a range of mixed-reality health care training applications.

Northwest Permanente—the largest medical group in Oregon with more than 1,300 physicians—will work with GigXR to create medical training simulations, beginning with life support and cardiac emergency measures like CPR. It is also providing GigXR with funding, though financial terms were not disclosed.

Training for cardiac emergencies often involves mannequins that are expensive and lack the realistic reactions of cardiac patients. GigXR’s gameplay-inspired technology aims to improve that training; it superimposes a 360-degree, holographic depiction of a patient into a trainee’s environment and allows them to walk through various life-saving techniques.

GigXR has also developed training simulations for the Air Force Academy, the University of Pennsylvania and a slew of other universities and hospitals. Its offerings have primarily centered around health care, physics and chemistry—areas where simulations can help avoid the dangers of real-world trials, according to GigXR CEO David King Lassman.

The startup has raised more than $6 million to date, Lassman told dot.LA, and is currently fundraising for its Series A round. In addition to its partnership with Northwest Permanente, he said GigXR is also teaming with the University of Michigan-operated Michigan Medicine and Cambridge University Hospitals in the U.K.