“This is my personal vendetta against the broken healthcare system,” Ari Tulla tells me, mid-pitch, while standing on the sidewalk after a recent TechCrunch event in Redwood City. He’s talking about BetterDoctor, a startup he co-founded last year after struggling to find the best, local physicians in San Francisco during a series of family medical emergencies. Ari left his position as the head of… → Read More
Back in June, Silicon Valley’s health-focused startup accelerator, Rock Health, kicked off its third program. What was notable about this third batch — other than the encouraging fact that a health-only accelerator has made it to its third batch (props also to Blueprint Health in NYC, now on its second) — was the promise of its future academic pedigree. That is to say, Rock Health co-founder… → Read More
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… → Read More
Entrepreneurs are inherently risk-takers. But, the tech industry today needs more of the type of risk-takers who go against the grain by actually tackling big, difficult problems. I mean the type of trenchant problems no one likes to talk about and take years to solve.
Like this: Today, we live in a world where more than one billion people are unable to afford (or do not have access to)… → Read More
Today, one in four Americans suffer from a diagnosable mental illness, yet only one-third of those with symptoms are treated. Among the reasons why: The poor distribution of mental health professionals, the stigma that comes with mental health issues and, sadly, the high cost of care.
In 2009, Mark Goldenson launched BreakThrough at TechCrunch50 to address this problem, offering an easy and… → Read More
Procured Health, a startup that aims to help hospitals better discover, evaluate and adopt quality medical devices, is today announcing that it has raised $1.1 million in seed funding from a flock of angels and VCs. Investors in the startup’s first round included Zimmerman Ventures, Bessemer Venture Partners, Fidelity Biosciences, NaviMed Capital’s Bijan Salehizadeh, CEO of Bloom Health Abir Sen… → Read More
Jason Langheier founded Zipongo in June 2011 to give families and parents an easier way to make healthier dietary choices by reducing the costs that so often get in the way. Through a web-based health community and iPhone app, Zipongo essentially combines the best of Mint.com and Groupon to create a service that gives users their own personalized wellness plans (and the ability to manage them)… → Read More
The popularity of health and medical apps has begun to explode, and the amount of health data along with it, much of it thanks to those increasingly wearable and user-friendly gizmos that use smart sensors to capture and transmit all shades of biometric data. Smartphones now tap into these health devices, turning our phones into heart monitors and cancer screeners, all with the goal of helping us… → Read More
The Crowd is on the loose. Thanks to the JOBS Act, mainstream attention came to crowdfunding this year, and platforms like Kickstarter and Indiegogo have been benefitting in kind. (Exhaustive post on the subject here.) The Crowd has pledged $275 million to some 63,000 Kickstarter projects to date, for example, and companies of all breeds are now using these platforms as launchpads and for a little… → Read More
Founded in 2006, 23andMe set out with an ambitious goal: To one day make the human genome searchable by becoming the go-to resource for personal genetic information. Leveraging DNA analysis technology and web-based interactive tools, the company developed a “Personal Genome Service” that allows anyone and everyone to access and better understand their genetic data, including their ancestry and… → Read More
It’s no secret that Americans could lose a few pounds. I’m not calling them fat per se, but let’s just say that Hans and Franz are pretty busy these days. In January, GymPact launched a website and iPhone app with the goal of complementing all those newfangled health data trackers, devices, and virtual training apps to incentivize couch potatoes to get up and go to the gym — or yoga, the pool, or… → Read More
Over 80 percent of people seek health-related information online, on everything from insurance to help diagnosing aches and pains. As the world goes mobile, so too does health. Instead of using Google for your health queries or perusing WebMD, HealthTap launched last year to give people a way to connect with doctors in realtime via their mobile devices.
Today, the startup is announcing a… → Read More
Practice Fusion is the frontrunner in the fevered race to become the electronic medical record platform, and today it finished raising a $34 million Series C led by hedge fund Artis Ventures to make sure it wins and lead it towards an IPO. Practice Fusion’s valuation is now around a half a billion dollars, it tells me. Startups trying to compete? “We’re squashing them” founder and CEO Ryan… → Read More
At TEDx Edinburgh today, the BBC reports, mathematician Max Little has launched a new project that uses a speaker’s voice to help diagnose Parkinson’s disease. Parkinson’s, a devastating progressive neurological disease that develops very gradually and often starts with a very slight tremor in one hand, is notoriously hard to diagnose as there are currently no blood tests that can help doctors… → Read More
When I’m not writing for TechCrunch, my “day job” is working with healthcare providers the disruptive innovators who are reinventing healthcare and slaying the healthcare cost beast as a byproduct. In some cases, these are entrepreneurs. In most other cases, they are pioneers within existing healthcare providers fighting to make changes within otherwise slow-moving organizations. → Read More
It was only a matter of time before healthcare providers would start prescribing mHealth apps as soon as they proved to be as or more effective than prescription drugs. Happtique, a mobile health application store and app management solution startup will launch a trial of mRx. They claim this is the first program to enable doctors to prescribe mHealth apps to patients. mHealth pioneers are calling… → Read More
Late last week, San Francisco and Boston-based healthtech accelerator Rock Health held demo day for its second batch of startups at Practice Fusion’s headquarters. The thirteen companies pitched their ideas for making healthcare cheaper, more social, intuitive, and just generally less of a pain in the ass. Even though these companies have a hard road ahead, there are ideas here that, with some… → Read More
Aidin, a startup that helps people find better continuing care after they leave the hospital, is announcing today that it has raised $600K from General Catalyst, HLM, Red Swan and a band of angels and physicians from the healthcare space. The startup, a member of the NYC healthtech accelerator Blueprint Health, will use the funding to accelerate its growth and keep rampin’ up that team. Everyone… → Read More
Drchrono, a startup focused on bringing medical records and more to the iPhone and iPad, is announcing a big update today which introduces mobile payment feature to its platform, as well as a new way for physicians and patients to access their health insurance information from mobile devices.
Specifically, the company is adding two new features to its product line-up today: iPhone patient… → Read More
MapMyFitness, the health and fitness startup that powers a community of fitness-oriented websites like MapMyRUN.com, MapMyRIDE.com, MapMyWALK.com, has today announced that it has closed $9 million in series B financing, which brings its total investment to $15.5 million. The round was led by Austin Ventures and Milestone Venture Partners, with new, strategic partners joining the round, including… → Read More
Today, I participated in a meeting at the White House described as an “expert roundtable on patient access to health data” hosted by Todd Park (Chief Technology Officer of the United States), Farzad Mostashari (the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology), Leon Rodriguez (Office of Civil Rights) and Peter Levin (CTO Veterans Administration).
Being at the White House within a… → Read More
Thanks to health-focused startup accelerators like San Francisco-based Rock Health and New York City-based BluePrint Health lacking intimate familiarity with HIPAA or med school experience is no longer a disqualifier for entrepreneurs looking to enter the health space. There are plenty of problems to tackle, and there’s growth capital to be found.
To that point: One of the first graduates of… → Read More
MapMyFitness is a veteran of the online health and fitness space, with the first iteration of its website appearing back in the summer of 2005. Since then, the startup has developed a suite of fitness-oriented websites (like MapMyRUN.com, MapMyRIDE.com, MapMyWALK.com, et al) to let users track and store their running, cycling, walking and hiking endeavors, along with accessing a database of… → Read More
Simplee, a Mint-like platform for tracking healthcare expenses and then paying them online, is today announcing the close of its $6 million Series A round of funding. The round was led by The Social+Capital Partnership (aka “s23p”), and includes current investors, Greylock Partners Israel. As a part of the investment, s23p’s General Partner Ted Maidenberg and Greylock’s Tilli Kalisky joined… → Read More
This is the second part in a two-part series on strategic investors in healthcare.
Healthcare IT departments have focused much of their attention on the $19 billion portion of the stimulus bill that is providing billions of subsidies for the adoption of electronic health records. While this is logical given the available money, it is paying for health IT systems optimized for the “do more, bill… → Read More
This first part of a two-part series on strategic investors in healthcare focuses on the expansion of the venture business beyond traditional venture and large strategic investors. In the second part, I will outline the backdrop for the investment thesis that strategic healthcare investors are using to guide their capital allocation.
Healthcare providers are finding their “play it safe”… → Read More
And Now for Something Completely Different
Try this: you wake up without an alarm sometime soon after sunrise, with plenty of time to spare to make it to work.
It was a good sleep; you went to bed just after nine o’clock after having a snack consisting of coconut milk blended with blueberries and a little whey powder. You’re already savvy about getting enough REM sleep, but now you aim… → Read More
If you missed the Bodies exhibition at your local science center, you may be in luck. Rather than see some hapless Chinese prisoners dissected and put on display, you can now view the human body in 3D using any browser. You can see almost all the systems, nerves, and organs as well as simulate the effects of various diseases including cancer and heart trouble. Ain’t the future wonderful?
The… → Read More
In January, Zeel launched into the wild, bringing Zocdoc’s model to alternative healthcare providers — like massage therapists, personal trainers, nutritionists, and acupuncturists — allowing consumers to easily search for and book appointments with these providers.
To accompany its launch, Zeel raised $1.5 million in funding from Matt Ocko of Archimedes Capital, Esther Dyson, Ken Cron, and a… → Read More
Currently, the federal government is poised to level the playing field for healthtech startups. An unprecedented wave of innovative healthtech startups has been developing over the last few years. You can see them at conferences such as Health 2.0, TechCrunch Disrupt, TEDMED and demo day events that Blueprint Health, Healthbox, Rock Health and StartUp Health host. Nonetheless, the health sector… → Read More
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