The holidays wreak havoc on our bodies, with their mandatory over-indulgence in food as well as family and reminiscences. As we reflect on the year past — its victories and losses — we also begin looking ahead to the next, and in big ways or small, making plans to keep our momentum going.
For many, this involves taking health more seriously, whether it’s losing a few pounds, training for that… → Read More
Earlier today, after nearly a year in development, Omada Health launched to bring diabetes prevention online in an effort to help fight obesity in the U.S. NatureBox wants to do its part, too, and is now announcing that it has closed $2 million in seed funding to accelerate its business and help anyone and everyone discover healthier eating options. → Read More
Last December, Omada Health raised $800K in seed funding from a host of angel and venture investors, including NEA, Aberdare, Kapor Capital, TriplePoint Ventures and Esther Dyson — to name a few. A graduate of Rock Health’s first batch, the startup started out on a mission to take on diabetes (and prediabetes) by leveraging the latest research, design, behavioral science and digital… → Read More
While accelerators may be in a bubble, they’re also beginning to have a measurable, positive impact on the ecosystem. The real opportunity, though, is not in creating another Y Combinator, but in building vertical-specific accelerators that bring together industry partnerships to create learning and business opportunities for their startups. In healthtech, there’s Rock Health, Blueprint, … → Read More
The next time your doctor says, “I have an app for that,” try not to punch them in their stethoscope. Why? Because they just might be using AliveCor. For those unfamiliar, the San Francisco-based company is the maker of a low-cost, clinical-grade mobile heart monitor (fondly known as an electrocardiogram, or ECG, monitor) that fits over the back of your iPhone. → Read More
For Quantified Self devotees, data hounds and fitness enthusiasts, it’s a good time to be alive. Recent improvements in sensor technology, battery life and connectivity (and lower costs) have given rise to a slew of wearable gadgets and apps that make it easy to track and make sense of our health data. Yet, as the space heats up and gets noisier, some have begun to ask: Do we really need another… → Read More
Instead of anxiously searching Google or WebMD, people would rather turn to a real human being for answers to their pressing health questions — preferably one who’s been to school for 10 years. The problem is, of course, that visits to the doctor’s office cost money. Plus, you need an appointment and you’ll probably sit in a waiting room. Wellsphere’s Ron Gutman founded HealthTap in 2010 to give… → Read More
If you’ve spent any time taking care of children, aging parents or those with special needs, you know it’s is hard work. Staying on top of and organizing files, contacts and medications, while coordinating with caregivers and trying to keep all that information secure and private is challenging to say the least. This is where CareZone comes into play. Since launching in February of this year, the… → Read More
Hey designers! You could build another app. Or you could save some lives by entering the White House’s Health Design Challenge to give the electronic medical record a much-needed redesign. Right now the thing’s an abomination — all courier font, hard to read. If you can do better, you could win $25K and get your design rolled out to 6 million VA patients and open sourced for all the world’s… → Read More
Healthcare has long been a technology paradox. There have been few places further out on the cutting edge of technology than biotech and medical devices. In contrast, healthIT has been in a time warp (see Why It’s Good News HealthIT is So Bad). Nearly 20 years after the advent of the web, the dominant healthIT vendors have thrived on a business model and technology architecture that harkens back… → Read More
Thanks to MapMyFitness, RunKeeper, Nike and many more, apps that keep track of your exercise and push you to drop those extra pounds are by no means novel. Nonetheless, bootstrapped European startup Runtastic is still managing to carve out a name for itself in a crowded space by offering a simple user experience, while still offering the deeper functionality of higher-end products.
Continuing… → Read More
QuantiaMD, one of a growing number of companies attempting to build the LinkedIn for the medical community, today announced that it has raised $12 million in venture financing from Fuse Capital. The expansion round is the company’s largest raise to date and brings its total outside investment to $27 million. → Read More
Rock Health, the seed accelerator for startups focused on the health space, landed a big, new partner back in August: The well-known Silicon Valley venture firm, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers. The result of the new partnership? The promise of a considerably larger seed investment for its next batch of startups, as Kleiner joined Rock Health’s existing partners in offering $100K in seed… → Read More
If you don’t know about Startup Health and you’re a healthtech investor or entrepreneur (or at all interested in the space,) you need to rectify that. After all, as evidenced by the launch of another solid, differentiated health-focused startup accelerator last week, there is a lot of public, private and entrepreneurial attention shifting to the industry. → Read More
Founded in 2010, Boston-based Healthrageous has developed a platform that helps individuals, employers, health providers and everyone in between, to prevent and manage chronic health conditions. The startup’s platform collects biometric data from users various health-tracking devices, which it combines with information on their personal preferences to assist in setting goals, action plans and to… → Read More
Accelerators and incubators have been popping up left and right over the last few years, becoming, as Peter Relan recently put it, “an industry segment in their own right.” And while that industry segment has become more and more crowded, the family of accelerators focused exclusively on healthtech and digital health has remained small — in spite of huge opportunity.
But for early-stage… → Read More
Today, Morgenthaler Ventures and Health 2.0 concluded its “DC to VC” startup showcase, a nationwide contest that aims to find the most promising and “fund-able” young businesses in health IT looking for funding. From hundreds of applicants, twelve finalists were chosen to pitch their ideas on stage at the Health 2.0 Conference in San Francisco in front of a crowd of 400+ VCs, angel investors and… → Read More
As digital health data grows, wearable health-tracking devices mature, tools used in remote diagnosis and treatment improve and with healthcare providers soon to be prescribing mobile health apps, there’s a lot to be excited about at the intersection of health and technology. As Michelle Snyder of InterWest recently pointed out, thanks to the quickening pace of innovation in the space, it may not… → Read More
It’s a good time to be a healthy geek — and to start becoming one. Of late, we’ve seen an exponential increase in digital health data thanks to growing popularity of a new generation of smart, wearable devices that help us track and stay on top of our health. These Quantified Self devices scratch our geeky itch for data and allow us to take doctors and fitness instructors home with us — or out… → Read More
According to the Center for Disease Control, 25.8 million Americans (or 8.3 percent of the population) have diabetes, while an estimated 79 million people (aged 20 and older) have prediabetes — making it one of the most pervasive diseases in the U.S. Startups like Rock Health grad Omada Health and Glooko are addressing diabetes head-on, from prevention and intervention to making the lives of… → Read More
“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
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
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