Last year $7.6m was raised, with the remaining $2.4m to go towards scaling up commercial sales of the spectral molecular imaging scanners.
The compact scanners produce three-dimensional colour X-rays for initially diagnosing hand to shoulder complaints.
Among the 10 existing shareholders are father and son co-founders Philip and Anthony Butler, Pacific Channel and the Hospital for Special Surgery based in New York.
MARS was the first in the world to produce a colour CT imaging system.
The colour element provides greater resolution for medical specialists to interpret images of upper extremity injuries, fractures, implants, rheumatology disorders and arthritis.
Non-clinical scanners are already being sold to hospitals, universities, bio-engineering companies and laboratories in the United States, United Arab Emirates, Canada, China, Hong Kong, and New Zealand.
Stage two will be to generate sales of clinical scanners into medical centres and wrist clinics.
As well as accelerating market sales, the additional capital will go to develop more technology, build team numbers, and scale up production.
Group chief executive officer Ojas Mahapatra was hired to take the colour CT imaging system to clinical commercialisation.
He said the main focus of this capital round was to commercialise the technology and take it out of clinical trials and into clinical and non-clinical markets.
MARS was confident more big investors would come on board to close off this investment round for a shareholding in the business.
“We would like to get this sorted in the next couple of months. We are down to the last $2.4m of the $10m and we have already got $7.6m.”
MARS sees strong sales opportunities for its first product — a wrist scanner — initially in the US and has filed for clearance from the US Food and Drug Administration.
Dr Mahapatra said the US was a large market with many teenagers and people aged over 50 who were prone to wrist injuries.
Another advantage was its medical insurance system, he said.
“We don’t want to create a new market and we just want to slot into the system right next to a conventional CT scan. That means specialist orthopaedic surgeons will be able to refer their patients, get the MARS scan and it gets straight away reimbursed by the insurance companies.”
He said central diagnostic facilities in overseas hospitals had long wait lists for scans sometimes taking weeks and months.
Hospital administrations were starting to push patients out to “point of care” satellite clinics, orthopaedic wrist clinics and GP offices.
“We still have these large CT machines in a lead-coated room and now with our system you can have a compact CT machine sitting right next to the printer without the lead rooms. All CT machines are black and white so they only understand two colours, but in our system you get seven to eight colours or contrasts and that gives you much better resolution.”
Colour contrasts make it easier for surgeons to see if metal implants have bonded.
MARS scanners had minimal radiation exposure, only 5% of the dose of a conventional system, he said.
At the core of the breakthrough is photon-counting CT technology, powered by Medipix3RX X-ray detectors developed by CERN in Switzerland and 18 research institutes around the world, including the Universities of Canterbury and Otago.
Dr Mahapatra gained a physics PhD at the University of Canterbury and was most recently chief executive of local clean-tech company Fabrum.
MARS chairman Christopher Stoelhorst said Dr Mahapatra would lead MARS in the clinical-pathway phase, where his efforts would be focused on overseeing new capital and talent to accelerate growth.
The funding round is being led by Pacific Channel, a New Zealand venture capital firm focusing on investments in deep technology, including the future of health.
Pacific Channel partner Dr Roland Toder said the technology was a major advancement in medical imaging with a “compelling” value in the medical marketplace.
In the expanded leadership structure, Mark Figgit has moved into the role of chief operating officer.
