DURHAM – An amended SEC filing from Durham-based baebies, inc., signed  by CEO Richard M. West, says the company has raised a total of $28,273,444 from 173 investors since the date of first sale in late 2016.

Baebies develops newborn screening and pediatric testing solutions.

The fundraising is an equity round, according to the filing.

The company, which was awarded a $11.6 million contract in April to develop a diagnostic platform to identify sepsis in neonatal and pediatric patients, using its FINDER platform. It utilizes  digital microfluids technology, which can quickly and efficiently read a small fluid sample, analyzing the sample to screen for a variety of disorders.

Baebies Awarded $11.6M to develop diagnostic platform to ID sepsis

The technology is licensed from Illumina, a global genetic sequencing and genotyping company, which also has an equity stake in baebies, inc.  Illumina acquired the technology from Morrisville-based Advanced Liquid Logic in 2013 for $96 million, at the time that current baebies CEO was the CEO of Advanced Liquid Logic.

The company has delivered 10 million screenings, with about 3 million occurring in the first year after the onset of the global coronavirus pandemic, according to reports from the North Carolina Biotechnology Center in March.

In April, the FDA acknowledged the Emergency Use Notification for FINDER 1.5 to be deployed to test for COVID-19, which takes about 17 minutes.

The company has raised more than $56 million according to Crunchbase. That includes a $6 million round in July 2019, following $12.8 million the prior year.  The company also received a grant of more than $56,000 from the One North Carolina Small Business Program in February and received a $500,000 loan from the North Carolina Biotechnology Center in 2014.