A medical device company operating out of a 30,000-square-foot building in Duluth has raised $110 million to push a machine that keeps donated livers alive longer into hospitals across the country, a move its chief executive says will help address a national transplant waiting list of more than 100,000 people. Bridge to Life, which moved its headquarters from the Chicago area to metro Atlanta, fulfills orders for its VitaSmart hypothermic oxygenated perfusion system out of the Duluth facility, where it also leases space for operations and warehousing.
The $110 million financing closed on Aug. 12 and combined equity and debt, according to a company announcement, though a trade outlet, Medical Device Network, described the raise as a Series C equity round. The financing was led by new investor Soleus Capital, a Connecticut firm, with participation from Lauxera Capital Partners, which operates out of Paris and San Francisco, along with Bridge to Life directors, officers and employees, per the company's announcement. As Global Atlanta first reported, CEO Don Webber said Atlanta was an easy choice for the company's base because of its logistics network, connected airport and local talent pool.
What VitaSmart Actually Does
VitaSmart uses a pressure-sensing pump to cycle formulated fluids into a donor organ at the transplant center, extending how long that organ stays viable and allowing surgeries to be scheduled more predictably. That's a departure from traditional organ transport, which involves flushing the recovered organ and immediately putting it on ice, a method that slows an organ's metabolic rate to roughly 10 percent but doesn't actively oxygenate it. VitaSmart is designed to fit into the existing transplant workflow at its tail end, right before the organ reaches the operating room.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration granted VitaSmart De Novo clearance in January for hypothermic oxygenated perfusion of donor livers following static cold storage and prior to transplantation, according to Bridge to Life. The company says that makes VitaSmart the only hypothermic oxygenated perfusion system cleared by the FDA for liver transplant use. Duke University Hospital became the first U.S. transplant center to put the device to commercial use in March, preserving a donor liver from a donation-after-circulatory-death donor, the company's prior announcement states.
A Shortage Measured In Lives
More than one-third of kidneys and one-fifth of livers that are donated end up lost before they can be transplanted, according to the seed reporting from Global Atlanta. Bridge to Life positions VitaSmart as one answer to that waste, framing the device as a way to address a global organ shortage the company says affects roughly 500,000 patients worldwide. In the U.S. alone, government figures cited separately put the waiting list at more than 109,000 people as of early August, while a Government Accountability Office summary found more than 100,000 people remained on the national waiting list as of May 2025.
About 12,000 livers underwent perfusion in the United States last year, per the Global Atlanta reporting, a number Webber's company hopes to grow substantially. Research published by the National Institutes of Health notes that U.S. adoption of machine perfusion technology has lagged behind Europe, though it adds that FDA approval and device availability have created conditions for rapid growth domestically. VitaSmart is already approved for sale in Europe and available in Saudi Arabia, India and other countries that accept the CE mark, according to Bridge to Life's own materials.
Betting Big On the U.S. Market
Webber told Global Atlanta that VitaSmart will target the United States as its largest market and that the company plans to triple its VitaSmart business within the next two years. He said the device isn't available everywhere yet but will eventually be, and that it can improve both patient outcomes and financial returns for the medical institutions that adopt it. Proceeds from the new financing will fuel that expansion by growing the field team and providing working capital meant to reach every transplant center in the country, the company said in its announcement.
Part of the money is also going toward refinancing Bridge to Life's existing credit facility with Perceptive Credit Funds, debt the company says previously helped carry it through the FDA clearance process. Beyond livers, Bridge to Life is developing an organ-viability assessment tool that remains under investigation and is not yet cleared for commercial sale, according to Lauxera Capital Partners. The company has said separately it intends to expand its organ-preservation and perfusion portfolio beyond liver transplantation into additional organ applications over the next three years.
Georgia's Role In a Global Supply Chain
VitaSmart devices are manufactured in Italy, but Bridge to Life's Duluth facility handles order fulfillment for the U.S. market, built out after the company created an onsite research and development lab there and hired engineers to help prepare the device for launch, according to the company's own account of its first year in Georgia. The company also sells cold flush chemicals, including its Belzer UW solution, in 37 countries, with markets that include China, Japan, Australia and Vietnam, and distributes products in Europe from a warehouse in the Netherlands, per Global Atlanta's reporting.
Samuel Levy, a co-founding partner at Lauxera Capital Partners, said Bridge to Life has moved preservation technology from clinical promise to routine practice, and argued that broader adoption of machine perfusion can save lives and reduce costs across the healthcare system. Lauxera has previously achieved a $1.5 billion exit from another company in the same market segment, according to Global Atlanta's reporting. Bridge to Life counts medical institutions among roughly 500 organ transplantation centers worldwide as clients, and describes itself as a global market leader in cold organ preservation solutions.
