Hilo (formerly Aktiia) scoops up $42M to develop an ML model for blood pressure management

Traditional blood pressure monitoring is inconvenient, sporadic, and often fails to capture accurate trends, leaving many cases of hypertension undiagnosed or poorly managed. Hilo (formerly Aktiia) addresses this by offering continuous, passive, and clinically validated blood pressure monitoring through a wearable device and app, enabling more accurate diagnoses, personalised insights, and improved hypertension management.
Today, Hilo, the newly rebranded blood pressure intelligence platform formerly known as Aktiia, announces an oversubscribed $42 million Series B funding round, co-led by Earlybird Health andWellington Partners, with new investorsKfundandnaturalX Health Ventures, and participation from existing investorsredalpine,Khosla Ventures,Molten Ventures,Translink CapitalandVerve Ventures. The investment, which brings the company’s total financing to date above $100 million, will accelerate its mission to manage the world’s blood pressure.
This Series B funding will fuel continued product innovation, expansion into new markets, and the build-out of its blood pressure intelligence platform to support enterprise use cases.
Raghav “Rags” Gupta, CEO of Hilo, commented: “This funding round is a testament to the confidence our investors have in Hilo’s groundbreaking technology and our mission to manage the world’s blood pressure through more frequent, convenient, and accurate measurements. With billions worldwide suffering from hypertension — only 20% of whom have their blood pressure under control — the need for innovative, accessible blood pressure monitoring solutions has never been greater.”
Aktiia, now trading under Hilo, was founded in Switzerland in May 2018 byRaghav “Rags” Gupta(CEO),Dr. Mattia Bertschi(COO) andDr. Josep Solà(CTO). Both spent 15 years at the Swiss research institute CSEM, specialising in decoding heart signals and developing non-invasive blood pressure monitoring technology. Their backgrounds in biomedical engineering (Bertschi) and telecommunications (Solà) provided deep expertise in biomedical signal processing and clinical research.
They founded Aktiia to address the shortcomings of traditional blood pressure monitoring, which they found to be cumbersome, inaccurate, and inadequate for effective management of hypertension. The company aims to revolutionise hypertension care by providing continuous, user-friendly, and clinically validated blood pressure monitoring, empowering individuals and healthcare professionals with actionable, AI-driven insights for better diagnosis, treatment, and prevention of hypertension-related complications.
The company has developed a foundation Machine Learning model specifically designed for blood pressure. The model has been trained on tens of billions of optical signals from real-world users and refined with hundreds of millions of calibration points, establishing its leadership in the emerging category of cuffless blood pressure monitoring (CBPM).
By integrating advanced AI algorithms with extensive datasets, Hilo’s CBPM products provide convenient and valuable reports, offering both individuals and healthcare professionals a clear picture of blood pressure patterns. The company’s foundation model has been trained on billions of optical signals and hundreds of millions of readings from more than 120,000 users, underscoring its leadership in the CBPM category.
Alongside this funding, Aktiia is introducing its new brand identity: Hilo. This rebrand reflects the company’s global ambition to make cuffless, clinically validated blood pressure monitoring universally accessible and effortless. The transition to Hilo marks a significant milestone in the company’s journey, aligning with its vision of healthier blood pressure for all while maintaining the trusted technology and reports that are central to its platform.
The company’s multidisciplinary team of biomedical signal processing experts has contributed to over 120 peer-reviewed publications and holds more than 35 patents.
Hilo distinguishes itself by offering fully automated, continuous monitoring with readings every 90 minutes, including during sleep, without user intervention. This provides a more comprehensive picture of blood pressure trends, including critical nighttime data, while reducing anxiety and user error associated with manual measurements. Hilo’s technology is clinically validated, CE-marked, and trusted by researchers and physicians in multiple countries, with a robust privacy and data protection framework.
Notable competitors include Omron, whose HeartGuide smartwatch utilises an inflatable cuff for clinically validated readings, and tech giants Samsung and Huawei, which have integrated blood pressure features into their smartwatches; however, these often require regular calibration and user initiation. Other key players, including Philips, Withings, A&D Medical, Valencell, and SOMNOmedics, are developing or marketing their own wearable or cuffless solutions, utilising technologies ranging from optical sensors to photoplethysmography and smartphone-based video analysis.
With uncontrolled high blood pressure remaining a leading risk factor for death worldwide, Hilo’s technology could help close the gap in hypertension management. The company’s large, real-world dataset and AI-driven insights are poised to transform both individual care and population health as continuous monitoring becomes the new standard for cardiovascular risk management.
Christoph Massner, Principal at Earlybird Health, who will join Hilo’s Board of Directors, commented: “Hilo stands at the intersection of medical-grade precision and consumer-centric accessibility. By building on a validated medical device platform and an intuitive, user-friendly design, they bridge the gap between clinical reliability and everyday usability. It’s a rare combination that empowers users to take meaningful control of their health with minimal effort. This is especially critical given the enormous medical need: uncontrolled high blood pressure remains one of the leading risk factors for death worldwide.”
Johannes Fischer, Managing Partner at Wellington Partners, commented: “We are excited to co-lead this financing and to be backing Hilo’s innovative technology, which provides groundbreaking advancements to the billions of people with elevated blood pressure today. We believe that real-time and continuous access to blood pressure information will change the way we think about the monitoring and management of one of the most common risk factors to human health.”