{"id":584,"date":"2022-08-15T12:25:09","date_gmt":"2022-08-15T12:25:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/startups\/blog\/?p=584"},"modified":"2024-11-04T14:57:17","modified_gmt":"2024-11-04T22:57:17","slug":"ellington-west-sonavi-labs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/startups\/blog\/ellington-west-sonavi-labs\/","title":{"rendered":"Meet the Innovators with Ellington West, co-founder and CEO of Sonavi Labs"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

This week I was delighted to catch up with Ellington West<\/a> co-founder and CEO of Sonavi Labs<\/a>, a medical device and software company using AI technology to enhance chronic disease management, based in Baltimore, Maryland.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ellington comes from a tradition of changemakers. Her grandmother was one of the human computers working for NASA as portrayed in the book and movie, Hidden Figures<\/a>. Ellington\u2019s father Dr. James West is a renowned inventor with over 250 patents, credited with the invention of the foil electret microphone, used in many mobile phones today. Dr. West\u2019s invention is the basis for Sonavi Labs\u2019 keystone product, the Feelix smart stethoscope.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ellington has taken things a step further with Sonavi Labs where she has leveraged her father\u2019s research to develop an AI-infused stethoscope to help detect, diagnose and manage respiratory problems. <\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I started by asking Ellington what drove her to start a company.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Even before the global pandemic, respiratory diseases were some of the most expensive and fatal conditions that we face as a global community. Every year there are an astonishing number of infant deaths from pneumonia, when we know that pneumonia is both detectable and treatable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My father approached me when I was still working as Director of Sales for a healthcare company. He told me his research team created a dynamic technology in his lab at Johns Hopkins and someone needed to take it out of the lab and into the market.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Once you know there is a technology that can save lives, specifically pediatric lives, you can\u2019t un-know that. You have to do something about it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So, we set out to develop a chronic respiratory management system for all respiratory patients because there is no reason why we shouldn\u2019t have the same quality of care in the home that we can have in the clinic. From there, the Feelix smart stethoscope was born.<\/p>\n\n\n

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\"Feelix<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n

In terms of founding a company, I have always had a desire to bring people together, to help people identify their strengths around common goals. I didn\u2019t realize that was part of what makes a CEO, I just knew that I loved rallying people around challenges. I don\u2019t think young Ellington dreamed of being a CEO of a medtech company, but I always believed that when you get the right people around a powerful idea, anything can happen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ellington exudes such calm confidence when she talks about the company she is building. I pushed her a little on what some of the challenges must have been in those early days.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The entrepreneurial path takes a lot of grit and determination because things don\u2019t always go the way you plan. You have to be flexible. You have to be ready to pivot. You have to be able to accept wins, but you have to be able to accept failures too and push through them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The hardest part was understanding the nuances around bringing a medical device to market. It felt like we had decided to summit Everest even before we had climbed a small hill. It\u2019s hard just to figure out the team dynamics and how to keep people motivated. There are so many things that are up in the air and the most important thing you can do is choose what your priorities are as a leader, and then what the priorities are for each of your colleagues and get laser focused on those things.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Even with Johns Hopkins in the background, Baltimore is not a typical hub for tech startups. I asked Ellington what it was like building a company in Maryland.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The pandemic has transformed what we consider startup hubs. Here in Baltimore we have world-renowned universities, we\u2019re a stone\u2019s throw from NIH<\/a> and all the national labs. We have great talent here and the cost of living is more affordable. We always had access to physicians and tech leaders and now, because of the pandemic, we have access to investors. Everything is being negotiated digitally so we don\u2019t have to trek across the country to get in front of investors or to have clinical partners and tech partners consider us.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

All of the ingredients that make a tech hub great exist in every city around the world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ellington\u2019s experience here really chimes with Microsoft\u2019s core belief in the democratization of innovation. Easier access to investors leads to a more diverse group of founders. Whoever you are, wherever you are, you should be able to reach an investor and find the support your vision needs.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Given the quality of investors Sonavi Labs has secured so far, I wondered if Ellington had any tips, once you\u2019re able to reach a potential investor.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

One of our first and most critical hires was Brandon Dottin-Haley<\/a> as Chief Business Development Officer. He made it clear that the first thing we needed to focus on was nurturing our relationships with potential investors. At that time in 2017, it seemed Baltimore was very limited in terms of available capital and specifically investors that were interested in a company like ours which was both hardware and software.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The way we solved that was through pitch competitions. Getting on stages and creating a brand for ourselves as founders to become the experts in this space and build trust and build momentum.
\nWe also relied on our networks. As we began fundraising, we started with a friends-and-family round and we always considered the power of their networks, ensure that we could grow as a company through the power of who they knew.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Finding those first three investors was the hardest, and after that it was about maintaining those relationships, getting on stages, publishing papers and ensuring that we were thought of as industry experts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Even now as we\u2019re raising our series A, in a difficult market, we\u2019re leaning back on those relationships and partners, like Microsoft, which really open doors that we otherwise might not have access to. It\u2019s exactly this kind of support that we have had from Microsoft for Startups which makes a difference for small companies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I was fascinated to hear about how Sonavi Labs had identified and leveraged the kinds of startup pitch competitions that take place around the country to really hone their messaging and establish their credibility. I asked Ellington to talk more about that experience.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

One of the most important things you can do is create a brand for yourself as a founder to become an expert in your space and be regarded as such. Always take the stage when given the opportunity, whether that be a pitch competition, a panel or a lecture. Always take the meeting, always take the opportunity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We have seen so many positive results from our interactions on the stage, and that includes investors, advisors, key opinion leaders and potential customers. You have to think about how far you want your story to travel and every time you speak there may be someone in that room that has the potential to change the trajectory of your life and the fate of your company.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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YouTube Video<\/p>