Halifax-based Adaptiiv Medical Technologies has revealed it closed a Series A funding round worth “less than $10 million” in the past year and a half, and is planning on a Series B raise next year.

Adaptiiv CEO Alex Dunphy revealed the funding round last Thursday during a fireside chat at BioPort Atlantic, the region’s main conference for the life sciences industry. During the talk, he described the six-year-old company’s strong growth and its plans to develop manufacturing operations in Nova Scotia.

“[The round] was all about growth,” said Dunphy in an interview after his appearance at BioPort. “It was all about building our supply chain and transforming to become a medical device manufacturer rather than just a software company.”

Adaptiiv started in 2016 to solve a huge problem in the treatment of cancer. During radiation treatment, physicians create what’s known as a bolus, a piece of plastic that is placed over the cancerous area in a patient undergoing radiation therapy. The radiation hits the bolus, builds up and then is transferred into the tumour.

There can be no air pockets between the bolus and the skin, which complicates matters given that every body is unique. Hospitals using the Adaptiiv product buy a system that includes 3D printers with special filaments, so boluses customized to each patient can be printed within seconds. The boluses can be reused as the patient receives repeated radiation dosages. Or, if the patient’s body shape changes over the course of multiple treatments (not uncommon, as patents often lose weight through the process), the medical staff can print off another bolus.

After closing a $3.2 million seed round in 2020, the company began to grow more quickly and Dunphy’s team understood that it needed to build international partnerships. It struck two major partnership that were announced in May of this year, and they transformed the company.

The first was with Silicon Valley tech giant Hewlett-Packard, which allowed Adaptiiv to use its 3D printing technology, Multi Jet Fusion, to produce customized boluses. The second was with Palo Alto, California medtech specialist Varian Medical Systems, which involved a distribution partnership.

What Dunphy revealed on Thursday was that the company also raised a Series A round last year to finance its growth, and that Hewlett-Packard was a key investor. There were no institutions involved in the round, and the funding came from strategic partners, including HP.

He said the company chose to take the funding in two tranches, with half coming in the summer of 2021 and the rest in the summer of 2022.

The partnerships allowed the company to accelerate growth. Adaptiiv’s growth metrics are typical of companies targeting the healthcare industry, which is known for long sales cycles, he said. But the partnership with HP meant that the tech giant could provide the 3D printers and Adaptiiv the software, and together they could make inroads into major markets.

Adaptiiv now has 30 employees, and Dunphy is gearing up to raise a Series B round in 2023. That money will be used to develop manufacturing operations in Halifax so the company can make components needed for its solution. Dunphy gave a few hints about the coming round, saying he was hoping the funding group would include institutional investors, and admitting that the funding climate has grown more difficult as interest rates have risen.