AWAK Technologies raises $20 million for a portable dialysis machine

AWAK Technologies, a Singapore-based medical device maker, has closed a $20 million Series B round to advance its wearable peritoneal dialysis system toward a US pivotal trial, a required step before it can seek FDA approval. The round, among the largest medtech raises in Singapore this year, was led by Lion X Ventures and Vickers Venture Partners, with participation from Advanced MedTech and Eckuity Capital. It follows a $40 million round in late 2019, bringing AWAK’s total funding to more than $80 million.

Why it matters for healthcare executives

Dialysis capacity is a structural problem for health systems, not just a device category. Roughly 90% of US dialysis patients still travel to a clinic three times a week for hemodialysis, a model strained by chronic nursing shortages and fixed clinic square footage. Since 2021, CMS has been actively pushing providers away from that model through its ESRD Treatment Choices mandatory payment model, which financially rewards home dialysis and transplants over in-center treatment. For hospital and health-system executives, that means the economics of dialysis care are shifting: home-capable technology is no longer a niche offering but a lever for meeting CMS home-dialysis targets, reducing reliance on scarce clinic staff, and freeing in-center capacity for patients who can’t be treated at home. A wearable device that lowers the equipment and fluid-handling burden of home peritoneal dialysis is relevant to that shift specifically because peritoneal dialysis — unlike home hemodialysis — doesn’t require a care partner or as much technical training, making it viable for a broader patient population if the hardware gets simpler.

Historical context

AWAK’s raise sits inside a broader wave of capital into portable and home dialysis over the past five years. Diality, a competitor building a portable hemodialysis (not peritoneal) system, closed a smaller $12.5 million Series B in 2020. Outset Medical, further along in commercialization with its Tablo hemodialysis system, has raised significantly more — including a $125 million raise — reflecting how much more capital-intensive the space becomes once a device is past clinical trials and into scaling manufacturing and sales. Peritoneal dialysis at home is not new — Baxter has long been the dominant incumbent — but AWAK’s pitch is a smaller, wearable form factor with app-based remote monitoring, aimed at patients for whom current PD equipment is still too bulky for daily life outside the home.

The technology

AWAK’s system uses peritoneal dialysis, which filters blood through the patient’s own peritoneal membrane via a surgically placed catheter, rather than hemodialysis, which routes blood through an external machine. The device is designed to fit in a shoulder bag, uses a mobile app for control and to share treatment data with providers remotely, and is built to require less dialysis fluid than comparable systems.

Trial status

A pre-pivotal trial began at Singapore General Hospital in June [year]. AWAK has said it intends to move to a US pivotal trial as a step toward FDA marketing authorization, a process aided by the FDA’s Breakthrough Device designation the company has already received, which allows for more frequent interaction with FDA reviewers during development.