Confirmed: Doctors’ Social Network Doximity Lands Another $17M From Morgenthaler Ventures

Doctors social network Doximity has raised another $17 million at a ballpark $80 million valuation led by Morgenthaler Ventures. The company’s series B financing also included participation from returning investors, Emergence Capital Partners and InterWest Partners.

The announcement today follows the company’s $10.8 million series A raise in March of last year and brings the company’s total funding to just under $28 million.

The free communication network for U.S.-based physicians is tackling a huge market in the healthcare space — an area that’s growing like gangbusters thanks to the popularity of wearable medical devices, platforms and apps that now give consumers easier ways to track and make sense of our health data and interact with providers. The market for mobile health apps alone, for example, is forecasted to quadruple to $400 million by 2016.

When we last covered Doximity, 30,000 physicians were using the network to connect with other MDs and collaborate on patient treatment. Since its series A raise, Doximity has grown 15-fold and today the startup says that one in seven U.S. physicians are on its network and three of the top five medical schools (Stanford, UCSF and UPenn) have partnered with Doximity to run their alumni networks.

While the health market in the U.S. is growing fast, there are still problems aplenty. The cost of medical care remains high, and communication between providers, doctors and patients remains archaic. Patients get their in-office time with doctors, but they’re lucky if they get can practitioners on the phone or over Skype. What’s more, other than conferences, physicians don’t have a targeted and scaled platform to connect with each other, find referrals and benefit from successful treatments being used by other doctors across the country.

Doximity, which was founded by Jeff Tangney, the co-founder and former President of NASDAQ-listed mobile health software applications maker, Epocrates, is taking a page from LinkedIn to give doctors a medical-professional network to connect and collaborate across platforms. Unfortunately, physicians can’t use traditional social networks, email or SMS to discuss patients thanks to federal, HIPAA laws that require medical-grade security.

So, the network offers physicians the ability to engage in quick, HIPAA-compliant communications through mobile apps (available for iPhone and Android) or via the Web and can use a secure SMS messaging system or fax directly from their phone or computer to anyone in or outside of the network.

Physicians’ identities are verified through a three-step credential process, at which point they can fill out practice info, exchange contact data with colleagues, connect with former classmates and incorporate secure communication with their care team into treatment, while having connections suggested to them by Doximity, a la LinkedIn.

Doximity is now alone in the space, however, as it competes with the much larger Sermo, which claims to be the largest online network exclusive to physicians.

Update: We initially reported that Doximity had raised $20 million and have since updated with the correct funding numbers ($17 million series B raise and a valuation in the vicinity of $80 million) along with updated information and data from the company and investors.