Last Week in Digital Health Funding: Sep 9 - Sep 15
The following companies raised funds during the past 7 days: Keranova, Aural Analytics, Brave Care, Health Recovery Solutions, Fitplan, Insilico Medicine, Vim, Karuna Labs, PathoQuest, Kenshō, Fitso, Healthy.io, and Incredible Health.
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Developer of surgical ophthalmology equipment Keranova raised €24M. The France-based company has developed an ultra-fast robotized laser for treating patients for cataracts, which at a later stage, could tackle refractory problems such as myopia and astigmatism. The funds will allow Keranova to speed up the development of its technologies and to obtain the regulatory authorizations needed to market its solution for precise, repeatable and automated robotized procedures for cataract surgery. The company's long-standing shareholders Mérieux Equity Partners and Supernova Invest led the financing round with participation from Financière Arbevel, TI-invest and other international partners. • read more.
Speech analytics platform maker Aural Analytics raised $4.3M Seed round. Proceeds from the capital raised will be used to drive the next stage of the company's growth which will include further expansion of its clinical trial platform, the global release of its next-generation integration portal to support easy speech collection and analytics anywhere in the world, and several new clinical-grade mobile and web products to serve across the continuum of care in neurology. The company also intends to release a series of tool kits for researchers internally and externally that will power new breakthroughs in speech neuroscience and speech analytics. The round was led by Morningside Ventures and Tamarisc Ventures, with participation from TPG's Jamie Gates, Silicon Valley investor Marc Abramowitz, Arizona Tech Investors (ATI) and Desert Angels. Additional funding secured included a Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) phase II grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF). • read more.
Brave Care raised $5M for pediatric urgent care clinics. The funding will allow Brave Care to build out a new electronic health records system that would streamline check-in, foster communication with parents during and after a visit and help physicians and nurses spend more time focused on the patient and less time typing notes on their computers. Moreover, the company will open new, more lightweight facilities in the Portland area that can act as spokes to the main hub facility, where it has expensive but not oft-used equipment like an X-ray machine or a full-service lab. The money was provided by Sesame Street, Greycroft, Refactor, and Fifty Years, as well as Brave Care's previous backers including Founders' Co-op and Indicator Ventures. • read more.
Provider of remote patient monitoring tech Health Recovery Solutions raised $10M. Health Recovery Solutions (HRS) has gained national attention for its clinical success in reducing hospital readmissions and commitment to improving outcomes for both patients and health systems. The platform comprises tablet-based patient monitoring software and a web portal for clinicians to effectively view and manage patient data. The company also provides patient support and logistics management. It will use the funds to expand development of new products and services for the remote patient monitoring market. The financing was led by Edison Partners. • read more.
Personal training app Fitplan raised $4.5M. Launched in 2016 by Cam Speck and Landon Hamilton, Fitplan's training routines range in both length and intensity and are meant for all levels of experience, from beginner to fitness pro. Workouts range from 20- to 30-minute routines, tailored for those crunched for time, to more intense 90-minute workouts, to extended multi-week plans. The latest investment will be used to enhance product development and add more athletes to one of the fastest-growing fitness apps available. The funds were provided by prominent investors such as pro baseball great Alex Rodriguez, VC fund Corazon Capital, and fitness mogul Mark Mastrov, as well as Fitplan's existing investors &dash including Lerer Hippeau, Bullpen Capital, Imaginary and Advancit Capital. • read more.
Drug discovery company Insilico Medicine raised $37M Series B. Hong Kong-based Insilico Medicine is dedicated to transforming the pharmaceutical industry by developing and applying the next-generation deep learning approaches to every step of the drug discovery and drug development process. The company is constantly collaborating with the most innovative biopharmaceutical companies with disease-relevant assays to validate its solutions and generate high-quality machine-learnable data. The Series B funding will be used to commercialize the validated generative chemistry and target identification technology. Insilico Medicine will also build up a senior management team with the experience in the pharmaceutical industry, further develop its pipeline in cancer, fibrosis, NASH, immunology and CNS for the purposes of partnering with the pharmaceutical companies on specific therapeutic programs. The round was led by Qiming Venture Partners, and joined by Eight Roads, F-Prime Capital, Lilly Asia Ventures, Sinovation Ventures, Baidu Ventures, Pavilion Capital, BOLD Capital Partners and other investors including series A investors. • read more.
Healthcare platform for health plan-provider collaboration Vim raised $24M Series B. Founded in 2015, Vim has developed a smart technology platform that aligns incentives between health plans and care providers to empower value-based care decisions. It will use this investment to fuel rapid expansion across new U.S. markets, and accelerate product development and hiring initiatives. To date, the company has raised more than $37 million. The Series B round was led by Optum Ventures and Premera Blue Cross, with participation from Great Point Ventures, Sequoia Capital and Leverage Health Solutions. • read more.
Karuna Labs raised $3M Seed for its VR-enabled chronic pain management tech. Karuna Labs creates personalized chronic pain management programs using Virtual Reality technology that retrains the brain to perceive movement as non-threatening. Designed to restore function, Karuna Pro is used in clinics around the country, while Karuna Home is offered direct-to-patients for home use through workers' compensation insurance. The company will use the funds for clinical validation of its offering, as well as to further develop the technology and the team. The round led by Baseline Ventures, with participation from Anorak Ventures, the AET Fund, the Hustle Fund, Correlation Ventures, and Dreamit Ventures. • read more.
Paris-based life sciences company PathoQuest raised €8M. A spin out of Institut Pasteur, PathoQuest offers a game changing metagenomics approach to improving pathogen detection in biological samples. PathoQuest's technology combines a Next-Generation Sequencing (NGS) platform and a proprietary sample preparation process which is applicable to several types of samples with a proprietary pathogen genome sequence database and automated analysis pipeline. The company's solution provides microbiologists and clinicians with a comprehensive analysis covering all known clinically relevant human pathogens. The funding will help PathoQuest establish its position as a leader in the application of NGS to microbiologic testing. The financing includes a venture loan from Norgine Ventures, financing from historical investors Kurma Partners, Idinvest Partners and strategic partner, Charles River Labs and a new venture investor, investiere. Also included is 427K euros in non-dilutive funding from the French Public Program Investissement d'Avenir (PIA3) - concours Innovation i-Nov which is dedicated to bioproduction. • read more.
Holistic health startup Kenshō raised $1.3M pre-Seed round. The company has developed a personalized discovery platform that leverages in-depth scientific research to customize provider recommendations based on a wide range of considerations, including a user's symptoms, goals, lifestyle, and preferences. Kenshō, which is free to use, has also opened a beta waitlist for its platform in advance of the company's consumer launch and open access this Fall. The round was co-led by Female Founders Fund and Crosscut Ventures, with participation from Bo Shao's $100 million Evolve Foundation. • read more.
India's fitness & swimming coaching service Fitso raised $1.5M. Founded in 2015, Fitso offers coaching and access to swimming pools in Delhi-NCR and Hyderabad. It also provides multiple new sports programs for Badminton and Tennis among others. The company claims to have more than 20,000 subscribers in Delhi NCR. The plan is to use the funds to invest in expansion, talent, and technology to boost its operations. Furthermore, Fitso also wants to increase the numbers of indoor all-weather swimming pools. The round was provided by a group of investors including SRI Capital, Sprout Capital, IPV Capital, Zomato co-founder Pankaj Chaddah and Helion Venture Partners co-founder Ashish Gupta. • read more.
Israel's Healthy.io raised $60M Series C to turn the smartphone camera into a medical device. Founded in 2013, Healthy.io's first product, Dip.io, is the world's first clinically approved home urinalysis kit. The product effectively turns the smartphone into a clinical grade urinalysis device, enabling the layperson to conduct clinically required urine testing with a simple smartphone scan. The second product, ACR, is also a urinalysis test that lets people with diabetes or high blood pressure reliably test themselves at home for kidney disease. In addition, there is Chronic wound monitoring, an assessment tool to analyze chronic wounds over time and facilitate better care coordination. The funding round — led by Corner Ventures with participation by Joy Capital and all previous investors: Ansonia Holdings, Aleph, and Samsung NEXT — will be used to accelerate Healthy.io's global expansion and product development. • read more.
Health care hiring platform Incredible Health raised $15M Series A. As a career marketplace for permanent health care workers, Incredible Health puts nurses in the driver's seat. The company will use the funds to scale operations nationwide, as well as to expand from hiring platform to the community for health care professionals as they advance their careers. The round was led by Andreessen Horowitz with participation from NFX, Obvious Ventures, Precursor Ventures, and Gingerbread Capital, as well as a few notable angels ‐ including Matt Mickiewicz, Steve Goodman and Pete Kazanjy. • read more.
Please note that this list represents only the digital health deals that caught our eye in the past 7 days. There may be other deals we are not aware of or those which we don't think fit the "digital health" category.
* This article was originally published on DHbriefs.com.