Awarepoint Corporation, the leading provider of real-time location system (RTLS) solutions for healthcare, today announced it raised $14 million in additional financing. The Heritage Healthcare Innovation Fund (HHIF), a limited partnership operated by Heritage Group, a Nashville, Tenn.-based private healthcare investment firm, invested $7.5 million.

Existing investors including Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, Cardinal Partners, Venrock, Jafco Ventures, Avalon Ventures, New Leaf Venture Partners and Top Tier Capital Partners invested the balance of the round. The funding will enable expansion of Awarepoint's professional services, client management and manufacturing capabilities to meet the needs of its growing client base.

HHIF, which is a $157 million strategic venture fund backed by many of the nation's top hospitals, health systems and healthcare services firms, selected Awarepoint as its first investment because of the company's industry-leading, cloud-based RTLS and workflow solutions, an impressive deployment track record and proven management team. HHIF's limited partners include: Amedisys, Cardinal Health, Community Health Systems Inc., Health Care Service Corporation, Iowa Health System, LifePoint Hospitals, Memorial Hermann Healthcare System, Trinity Health (Novi, MI) and Vanguard Health Systems. Heritage Group will appoint a representative to Awarepoint's board.

"Heritage seeks to fund solutions for our strategic investors and Awarepoint clearly offers our hospital system partners an opportunity to generate meaningful ROI. The RTLS market is growing rapidly and Awarepoint's leadership position, unique technology and integrated solutions set it apart. We and our limited partners look forward to helping the company realize continued success," said Paul Wallace, managing director of Heritage Group.

Awarepoint grew substantially in 2011 as new contracts and activations of itsaware360°Suite of RTLS-enabled solutions increased the number of clients to 186 hospitals, with 299,891 total tags under contract. Awarepoint's aware360°Suite helps hospitals reduce operating costs; boost top-line revenue; and enhance compliance management, patient and caregiver satisfaction. Hospitals use Awarepoint's patented solutions to manage and track mobile assets, patients and personnel; monitor blood, tissue and medication temperature; increase hand hygiene compliance; and improve patient and caregiver workflows across healthcare facilities as well as in specific areas including emergency and perioperative departments.
"Our selection as the Heritage Fund's initial investment and the continued support of our current world-class investor group is a tremendous vote of confidence," said Jay Deady, CEO of Awarepoint. "This strategic funding will fuel our continued growth with high-volume, high-velocity clients, including Kaiser, BannerHealth and other top U.S. health systems, as well as drive additional market growth opportunities."

About Heritage Group
Heritage Group is a strategic venture capital firm with a track record of building innovative healthcare companies. Heritage serves as the general partner of the Heritage Healthcare Innovation Fund with $157M of committed capital from strategic limited partners including some of the nation's leading hospitals, health systems and healthcare companies. For more information, go to www.heritagegroupusa.com.

About Awarepoint
Awarepoint provides the only complete RTLS solution optimizing healthcare workflow to improve asset management and availability, patient throughput and care team efficiency.
The company's aware360°Suite provides unmatched RTLS technology, best-in-class software and fully managed services for the healthcare enterprise. By enabling predictive workflows to better manage assets, patients and personnel across the enterprise, the aware360°Suiteallows administrators and care providers to advance the Quality, Efficiency, Experience, and Economics of care. For more information, visit www.awarepoint.com.