Trice Med raises $12M for needle camera

Safeguard Scientifics, Wayne, has joined Michigan-based Biostar Ventures and other investors pumping $11.6 million into Trice Medical, a King of Prussia company that makes "mi-eye," a mini-camera and light mounted on a 14-gauge needle -- the kind they use in vaccinations -- and wired to an Android tablet, which CEO Jeff O'Donnell tells me can be used to probe hips and shoulders, "averting the need for an expensive MRI" or exploratory surgery.

O'Donnell is a serial startup CEO: He previously ran Embrella Cardiovascular of Wayne, which he sold to Edwards Life Sciences in March 2011 for $43 million, four times what investors put in. He also ran Photomedex (based in Montgomeryville), Kensey Nash of Exton, and Cardiovascular Dynamics, Irvine, Calif.