Finger on your pulse: API-first startup Vivanta hopes to be Plaid for health

API-first companies are on the rise, not just in fintech but also in sectors like healthcare. This diversification is boosted by the fact that employees who have earned their chops on banking APIs are now applying their skills to other problems.

Healthcare is one of the sectors that could benefit from API solutions. While there is value in knowing your heart rate or glucose levels, an API can help companies give its end users a much more global view of their well-being, allowing them to take the right steps to stay healthy.

Mexico-based startup Vivanta lives at this intersection of healthcare and APIs. Its focus is health data, with an eye on the fact that wearables are becoming ubiquitous. But its co-founders Alex Hernandez and Jorge Madrigal previously worked together at fintech companies: Arcus, acquired by Mastercard last December, and Belvo, which is API-led and sometimes described as “LatAm’s answer to Plaid.”

This API-centric track record was key for the startup to raise a $300,000 pre-seed round even before launching its product — Vivanta is doing a private launch next month.

“We invested in Vivanta because Jorge and Alex have a successful track record of pushing new API products into the market,” said 99startups managing partner Alejandro Gálvez, who participated in the funding alongside Guadalajara’s Redwood Ventures, Monterrey’s Angel Hub MTY and Mexico-focused syndicate Lotux.

Vivanta’s founders also invited a dozen individuals to participate in the round, with a focus on operators with relevant expertise. “Being able to ask questions to people who’ve done it before is invaluable,” Madrigal told TechCrunch. “We wanted to have a strong network of people that we can lean on.”

Some of Vivanta’s angel investors are founders themselves, such as Arcus’ Edrizio de la Cruz, Madrigal’s and Hernandez’s former boss. But the pair also made a deliberate effort to reach out to technical profiles that are perhaps less common on cap tables — including female engineers and CTOs currently building APIs.

Vivanta’s backers also include some of its future customers. While it hasn’t launched its offering yet, the startup has collected some 30 letters of intent from companies interested in its product.

Connecting health data and more

Thirty is a start, but Vivanta has its eyes on a bigger target. According to App Annie data, more than 71,000 new health and fitness apps were launched in 2020. Some API-centric companies are already focused on health data, such as Human API and Validic. But Vivanta is hoping to better take advantage of the rise of wearables.

Redwood managing partner Alejandro Aleman hopes that Vivanta can help its clients take advantage of these new devices.

“In a context where the purchase of wearables is expected to grow at a CAGR of 19.5% in the next five years, and the market for apps for wellness and health grows more than 23% annually, companies are looking for new ways to expand their services and improve their user experience by leveraging data to personalize products and services,” Aleman said.

Vivanta’s plan is to offer an encompassing solution that goes beyond unlocking data access. According to Madrigal, what Vivanta is building is “not just the API, but a full stack of tools that [clients] can use to connect, understand and use” their customers’ data.

“A lot of companies we talk to think the hardest part is gaining access to the data,” Madrigal said. “But then what happens next is they’re overwhelmed with data and need to figure out how to understand and use it.” To be able to help them, Vivanta is making sure to have not just programmers but also health experts on its team, starting with a physicist and a doctor.

Vivanta isn’t only focusing on smart watches; it can also connect data from smartphones, patches and home gym devices. But wearables are particularly interesting because of longitudinal data. This means that you don’t just get a snapshot: You can track how a variable evolves over time, and cross it with other data points repeatedly.

We also tend to underestimate how many variables wearables can track, including resting heart rate, heart rate variability and steps, but also breaths you take while you sleep, how long you sleep and how long it takes you to fall asleep. In total, devices can track more than 60 different biomarkers, according to Vivanta.

“Putting data together is very powerful,” Madrigal noted. And with great power comes great responsibility, which is why Vivanta will provide clients with a tool to help them get consent from their end users. “Everything we do has to have user consent.”

An apple a day

Armed with users’ consent, Vivanta’s clients can use data to differentiate and create engagement, for instance by coming up with digests within their apps. But they could also build products based on the data, such as insurtech and fintech solutions rewarding fitness. There’s something dystopian about the latter, but Madrigal sees an upside to aligning incentives around “keeping you healthy.”

The U.S., he noted, spent nearly 20% of its GDP on healthcare in 2020. Meanwhile, emerging countries don’t have the infrastructure to cope with health needs, “so it’s preventative care that matters.” And this is also where Vivanta aims to help.

Vivanta hopes to serve customers primarily targeting the U.S. and Latin American markets. It is based in Mexico City, and Madrigal wished more entrepreneurs seized the opportunity to go global from Mexico. The startup also has a strong network across Latin America: Before raising its round, it participated in the fifth edition of the Latitud Fellowship program. (Read more about Latitud here.)

It will be interesting to see if other Mexican companies follow Vivanta’s footsteps in building global products. But it will be perhaps even more interesting to see if fintech becomes less dominant among local startups.

“My belief is that healthcare is right where fintech was 10 years ago, and I’m excited about what Vivanta can do to accelerate this industry,” Gálvez concluded.