Bend Startup Jettstream Wins Angel Investment Prize in Southern Oregon

Local medical device startup JettStream, Inc. won a $220,000 investment award at the Southern Oregon Angel Investment Network Conference in Jacksonville, Oregon last Thursday.

“This is great news for JettStream,” said company co-founder Mathew Smith. “It’s more than just the money. We’ve been working hard for two years, and winning the conference provides a lot of validation for our efforts. It also gave us the opportunity to reach out to another part of the state and meet some new people in the startup world.”

Last year JettStream was a finalist at the Bend Venture Conference, a local angel investment group, but the grand prize was awarded to a Beaverton medical technology company.

Smith and co-founder Sarah Cota launched JettStream last year, motivated by Cota’s frustrations with administering nebulizer treatments to her asthmatic son, Jett. Together Smith and Cota designed the JettPak, a device that helps parents treat children while they sleep, which Cota says makes the job easier for the parent and less traumatic for the child.

The JettPak, along with Cota’s pitch, convinced Southern Oregon investors to choose JettStream from among four other finalists as the recipient of the investment prize. Smith says the money will help cover the company’s administrative expenses, conduct research and trials, file patents and pay for manufacturing in California.

JettStream hopes to start selling the JettPak in early June. In-home clinical trials, which were approved by the St. Charles Health System, begin this summer.