Medical devices & diagnostics · At-home blood testing
InnaMed
A Philadelphia startup that built a microneedle, cartridge-based blood testing platform called HomeLab, sold multi-year testing services to pharmaceutical companies, and in March 2023 licensed its technology and some of its staff to Fluxergy. It never obtained FDA clearance for the device.
A button, a cartridge, ten minutes
InnaMed's pitch was a lab that fit on a kitchen counter. A patient inserted a test cartridge into a small device, which ran a three step calibration. Pressing a button on a microneedle collector drew a small blood sample, described by the company as virtually painless, and the device ran the analysis itself with electrochemical biosensors rather than a technician and a centrifuge.
The chemistry was multiplexed: a sample mixed with a detection antibody and an electron generator, introduced to a capture antibody on the biosensor, with an electron transfer measured across the chip. The result was meant to give lab grade readings on proteins, hormones, antibodies and drugs without a venipuncture or a waiting room.
Results fed into an API built for virtual care providers. A clinician's EMR would receive a report, along with what the company called context engine insights, trend lines meant to flag what mattered in a patient's numbers over time.
The problem it targeted
InnaMed built HomeLab around patients who need blood testing often: people managing heart failure, kidney transplant recipients, people with hypoparathyroidism, and people undergoing in vitro fertilization, per a 2024 interview with co-founder Eshwar Inapuri. All four groups require frequent lab draws to titrate medication or track a therapy, and all are burdened by the logistics of getting to a lab.
Clinicians who worked with the company echoed that framing. A heart failure specialist at Cone Health said the platform would help clinicians "titrate meds more aggressively," and a metabolic genetics chair at Children's Hospital of Colorado called real time at home testing "a significant advantage over the current standard of care."
Two Penn bioengineers
Anup Singh and Eshwar Inapuri, both University of Pennsylvania bioengineering graduates, founded InnaMed in Philadelphia in May 2016. Singh had done PhD work at UCLA in bioengineering after his BA and MS at Penn in physics and biophysics. One investor profile also names a third co-founder, Alan Jernigan, though other accounts of the founding describe only Singh and Inapuri.
The company joined Y Combinator's Winter 2017 batch, then licensed underlying biosensor IP from Auburn University, a step Inapuri later described as requiring careful diligence because university research is built for publication, not commercialization.
From incubator to Pennovation Lab
InnaMed moved into Penn's Pennovation Center in 2020 and by October 2021 was expanding into a purpose built 4,384 square foot lab at the adjacent Pennovation Lab building, having doubled its staff in the prior three months. "Accessibility has always been a challenge with healthcare," Inapuri said at the time. He projected HomeLab devices would be in patients' homes by late 2022.
The company funded that growth with two Regulation Crowdfunding raises, a Y Combinator connection, backing from small funds including Blue 9 Capital, and grants it has said came from NASA and HHS. Headcount grew from about 3 people in 2018 to 14 or 15 by 2021. Revenue came mainly from multi-year research collaborations with pharmaceutical companies that wanted decentralized testing for their own clinical trials, reaching close to $1.4 million by the company's own account in 2020.
The sale, not the exit story anyone plans for
InnaMed ran its own sale process, without a banker, targeting well capitalized diagnostics companies that had emerged from the pandemic's at home Covid testing boom and were looking to diversify. On March 2, 2023, Fluxergy, an Irvine, California testing company, announced it had acquired certain InnaMed employees and assets and licensed InnaMed's electrochemical biosensing technology, including the HomeLab device and software, to support a rapid basic metabolic panel. Financial terms were not disclosed, and Fluxergy said it would keep some InnaMed staff on as consultants and keep an office open in Philadelphia.
Inapuri later described the deal as a technology and talent license, not an outright company sale, and said Fluxergy was chosen partly because it would keep the Philadelphia office running for employees who wanted to stay. He joined the founding team at Ventricle Health afterward. InnaMed's SEC filings stop after an April 2022 annual report, and the innamed.com domain returned a 404 error by March 2024 before lapsing to an unrelated betting site by 2026.
What is proven, and what is still claimed
| Evidence | What the record shows | Source type |
|---|---|---|
| FDA clearance | No 510(k) or PMA record for InnaMed found in openFDA as of Sep 25, 2026. | Not found |
| Clinical trials | Zero studies for InnaMed in the ClinicalTrials.gov API as of Sep 25, 2026. | Not found |
| Peer reviewed publications | Two PubMed records list InnaMed affiliated authors: a 2018 PLoS One paper on aptamers for LDL particle quantification, co-authored by Anup Singh and Eshwar Inapuri, and a 2019 Chembiochem paper on a colorimetric biosensor with a co-author listed at InnaMed's Philadelphia address. | Public record |
| Crowdfunding raised | SEC Form C filings show a 2019 Republic round closing at $1,070,000, and a 2021 Wefunder SAFE round amended in April 2021. An independent tracker lists the 2021 round closing June 16, 2021 at $1,281,106 on a $25 million valuation cap. | Public record |
| Total capital raised | The company said it raised $4.5 million from Y Combinator, DCVC and Blue 9 Capital among others. No Form D appears on SEC EDGAR under InnaMed's name, so no filing confirms a round beyond the two Reg CF raises. | Differs from filings |
| Federal grants | Company materials cite grants from NASA and the US Department of Health and Human Services. NIH RePORTER searches for InnaMed return zero results, and SBIR.gov's award API was not accessible to check directly. | Not independently confirmed |
| Revenue and headcount | Revenue was $237,435 with 7 employees for fiscal year 2019, and $1,439,995 with 14 employees for fiscal year 2021, nearly the same total already cited for 2020. | Public record |
| Fluxergy acquisition | Confirmed by Fluxergy's press release and trade press. Employees, assets and a technology license changed hands; terms were not disclosed and InnaMed was not described as merging into Fluxergy. | Independent |
Read plainly: InnaMed built a real device, ran real chemistry, sold real testing services to pharmaceutical partners, and raised real money from a broad crowd of small investors on the record. What is not on the record is any FDA clearance, any registered clinical trial, or a filing that backs up the larger VC and grant totals the company has described after the fact. The 2023 Fluxergy deal closed the company down as an independent entity while keeping its technology alive inside someone else's product.
What to watch
- Whether Fluxergy's rapid basic metabolic panel, which InnaMed's technology was licensed to support, reaches the market.
- Whether InnaMed's NASA or HHS grants surface in a public database that can confirm the amounts.
- Whether any of InnaMed's nine claimed patent applications issued as granted patents.
In their words
“Accessibility has always been a challenge with healthcare.”
Eshwar Inapuri, CEO and co-founder, Pennovation Works press release, Oct 2021 · Independent
“InnaMed’s patient-centric solution will revolutionize how we treat heart failure, enabling us to titrate meds more aggressively and provide a higher level of care at home. InnaMed’s cloud platform will also help with our clinical research efforts by improving patient adherence, retention, and satisfaction.”
Dr. Dan Bensimhon, Medical Director of Heart Failure Program, Cone Health, InnaMed website · Company-stated
“Real-time at-home blood testing for patients with inborn errors of metabolism is a significant advantage over the current standard of care. It allows for safe, convenient monitoring and tighter metabolic control for these high-risk patients.”
Dr. Shawn McCandless, Chair, Dept. of Genetics & Metabolism, Children’s Hospital of Colorado, InnaMed website · Company-stated
“Anyone with $60 and a credit card can invest in private startups like InnaMed at an early stage. This really opens up startup investing to everyone.”
Matt Melbourne, investment team principal, Republic, The Wharton School, May 2019 · Independent
“Our experience working with WIVA has been great thus far.”
Anup Singh, co-founder and Chief Science Officer, The Wharton School, May 2019 · Independent
“If you can eliminate or minimize each of those, then investors are more comfortable.”
Eshwar Inapuri, former CEO and co-founder, LifeSci Beat podcast, Jan 2024 · Interview
Related companies
Sources
- Public recordSEC EDGAR filing history and Form C filings, InnaMed, Inc., CIK 0001773255
- Public recordDevelopment of novel aptamers for low-density lipoprotein particle quantification
- Public recordA Rapid Colorimetric Sensor for Soluble Interleukin-2 Receptor alpha, Based on Aptamer-Adsorbed AuNP
- Public recordopenFDA 510(k) and PMA database, applicant search “InnaMed”
- Public recordClinicalTrials.gov API v2, search term “InnaMed”
- Public recordNIH RePORTER API v2, text and organization search “InnaMed”
- IndependentFluxergy Acquires InnaMed’s Blood Testing Tech to Support Metabolic Panel Development
- IndependentFluxergy acquires HomeLab technology from InnaMed
- IndependentInnaMed Makes the Move into Pennovation Lab
- IndependentPower Moves: Healthtech startup InnaMed gets a director of hardware engineering
- IndependentWharton Impact Venture Associates Research Blood-Testing Startup
- InterviewEshwar Inapuri, Former CEO & Co-Founder of InnaMed, on Founding Diagnostics Companies
- InterviewTechnology Driven Healthcare with Anup Singh
- IndependentInnaMed on Wefunder, investor deal profile
- IndependentBlue 9 Capital portfolio page listing InnaMed
- CompanyFluxergy Acquires Employees, Assets and Licenses Technology from InnaMed, Inc
- CompanyInnaMed company page and pitch summary
- CompanyInnaMed (YC W17) campaign page
- CompanyInnaMed website, product and clinician testimonial pages
- Public recordInternet Archive Wayback Machine CDX index for innamed.com, showing a 404 by Mar 24, 2024 and an unrelated site occupying the domain by 2026
Profile researched and written by Healthcare Discovery. Last updated September 29, 2026.
