Placer.ai, a location data analytics startup, raises $12 million Series A

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Catherine Shu@catherineshu / 7:00 am CST • January 22, 2020

Placer.ai, a startup that analyzes location and foot traffic analytics for retailers and other businesses, announced today that it has closed a $12 million Series A. The round was led by JBV Capital, with participation from investors including Aleph, Reciprocal Ventures and OCA Ventures.

The funding will be used on research and development of new features and to expand Placer.ai’s operation in the United States.

Launched in 2016, Placer.ai’s SaaS platform gives its clients real-time data that helps them make decisions like where to rent or buy properties, when to hold sales and promotions and how to manage assets.

Placer.ai analyzes foot traffic and also creates consumer profiles to help clients make marketing and ad spending decisions. It does this by collecting geolocation and proximity data from devices that are enabled to share that information. Placer.ai’s co-founder and CEO Noam Ben-Zvi says the company protects privacy and follows regulation by displaying aggregated, anonymous data and does not collect personally identifiable data. It also does not sell advertising or raw data.

The company currently serves clients in the retail (including large shopping centers), commercial real estate and hospitality verticals, including JLL, Regency, SRS, Brixmor, Verizon* and Caesars Entertainment.

“Up until now, we’ve been heavily focused on the commercial real estate sector, but this has very organically led us into retail, hospitality, municipalities and even [consumer packaged goods],” Ben-Zvi told TechCrunch in an email. “This presents us with a massive market, so we’re just focused on building out the types of features that will directly address the different needs of our core audience.”

He adds that lack of data has hurt retail businesses with major offline operations, but that “by effectively addressing this gap, we’re helping drive more sustainable growth or larger players or minimizing the risk for smaller companies to drive expansion plans that are strategically aggressive.”

Others startups in the same space include Dor, Aislelabs, RetailNext, ShopperTrak and Density. Ben-Zvi says Placer.ai wants to differentiate by providing more types of real-time data analysis.

“While there are a lot of companies touching the location analytics space, we’re in a unique situation as the only company providing these deep and actionable insights for any location in the country in a real-time platform with a wide array of functionality,” he said.

*Disclosure: Verizon Media is the parent company of TechCrunch.

The story of two women who’ve raised more than $6 million to start their own ‘fem tech’ company for women and children’s health

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Collin West and Nihar Neelakanti, Kauffman Fellows Fund Oct 4, 2019, 10:29 AM

  • Tammi Jantzen is the cofounder of Astarte Medical, a precision medicine company that utilizes software and predictive analytics to improve health outcomes during the first 1,000 days of life.
  • Jantzen prides herself on being part of a female-led cofounding team and has become very acutely aware of the specific challenges involved in fundraising for female founders.
  • She shared her experience transitioning from CFO in venture capital to entrepreneur, as well as pitching investors on “fem tech.”
  • Visit Business Insider’s homepage for more stories.

Tammi Jantzen grew up in a small Wisconsin college town and started her professional life as an accountant working for a publishing company, which was later acquired by McGraw Hill. After the acquisition, McGraw Hill let go of all the accountants and offered Jantzen a job in New York City. 

A year after the move, Jantzen realized her passions were leading her elsewhere. She fell into venture capital around 1998 after a VC client of her husband’s, a residential contractor, talked about how their fund was looking for a CFO. Soon enough, the fund offered Jantzen the job, and the rest is history. 

With nearly two decades of experience in venture, Jantzen made the bold transition to entrepreneur and cofounded Astarte Medical, a precision medicine company that utilizes software and predictive analytics to improve health outcomes during the first 1,000 days of life, with an initial focus on preterm infants. 

Jantzen prides herself on being part of a female-led cofounding team for Astarte Medical and has become very acutely aware of the specific challenges involved in fundraising for female founders. 

She joined us to speak about her fundraising experience as a cofounder of a startup, combining her former experience and perspective as GP of a fund tackling a complex, significant problem from two different angles. 

Learning by doing

There are few industries in which learning is so closely tied to “figuring it out along the way” than venture capital. Having an intimate understanding of the financial mechanics behind investment transactions is often the only prerequisite to becoming a successful venture capitalist — the rest must be learned through a wide variety of good and bad deals. 

“Prior to becoming immersed in the VC world, I had only heard about venture capital,” noted Jantzen. “I didn’t know much about it, and I learned from just doing.” 

The fund Jantzen joined was a $45 million regional fund and had already made a couple of investments. As the fund was preparing to raise a second fund, one of their LP’s presented an opportunity to join him in a $150 million fund called Battelle Ventures. Jantzen was a founding member of Battelle Ventures in 2003 as CFO and saw the fund grow to $250 million under management. Battelle Ventures was an early-stage fund focused largely on healthcare, energy, and homeland security. 

“Battelle Ventures only had a single LP, so there were unique aspects to our mandate and operations as a result,” commented Jantzen. 

During her time at the first fund, Jantzen met Tracy Warren. After Battelle Ventures chose not to pursue a second venture fund, Jantzen and Warren joined to start their own fund, Astarte Ventures. It was the first fund focused exclusively on women’s and children’s health. 

“Fem tech wasn’t coined yet,” said Jantzen. “We saw an enormous opportunity to add value to an underserved market. Prospective fund investors told us to go out and prove the market actually exists. We took a bet and it paid off. We helped validate the space and proved that our small fund would actually make money.” 

Jantzen and Warren put their own money to work, investing under Astarte Ventures. In the course of their work, they spent a lot of time visiting women’s and children’s hospitals around the country. That’s where they met Katherine Gregory, RN, PhD at Brigham and Women’s Hospital. Jantzen and Warren were intrigued by Gregory and her research. 

“Kate Gregory was clearly a rockstar,” said Jantzen. “She was working on some phenomenal research on preterm infant microbiome and gut health. She had a unique background having hands-on clinical experience as a nurse alongside stellar academic and research credentials. At the time, we didn’t know what the product would be, but we knew it was worth the time and energy to figure it out. This initial meeting with her prompted our entrepreneurial shift and led to the founding of Astarte Medical in 2016.” 

Starting to fundraise

Astarte Medical has raised over $6 million, with $1.4 million coming from Jantzen and Warren personally. Astarte Ventures funded the initial seed round, which funded the BabyBiome Study in Gregory’s lab at Brigham and Women’s Hospital. The company also received seed capital from Ben Franklin Technology Partners, who invested alongside the founders’ capital based on the strength of the team while the concept was still forming a business. In October 2017, having formulated a solid plan and developed an initial product, Astarte Medical went out to officially raise its Series A. However, fundraising for these experienced investors-turned-entrepreneurs was not without its challenges.

“Having spent so much time in early-stage investing, we went into this thinking we knew exactly what we needed to do to win over investors. The process of raising capital took longer than we ever thought,” said Jantzen. “It was actually really frustrating. VCs and even many of the angel groups said two things: ‘It’s really interesting what you are doing, but you are a little too early, so come back to us when you have revenue.'”

She added: “One of the most frustrating lessons of fundraising was spending too much time entertaining the wrong investors. We spent an incredible amount of time in diligence with some, who when asking about exit strategy and corporate development specifically asked if our female-led team could handle it. One group even asked if we had any men on the team. There we were with a life-changing company, a functional business model, and an experienced team, and we’re being asked if we had male supervision.”

Despite vexations, the pieces started to come together in early 2018. Keiretsu Forum MidAtlantic would become the lead investor, and the term sheet was executed in February 2018. Astarte Medical got its final commitments in December, a full 10 months after the execution of the term sheet.  

“We now realize that we set very unrealistic expectations on how much time and energy would be expended to raise this round of funding. We spent 80% of the time on 20% of the commitments,” said Jantzen. “We spent too much time chasing small checks. In the final three months, the bulk of the money came in triggered by some uncommon avenues.”

Astarte Medical participated in accelerators XLerateHealth and Illumina Accelerator. 

“Every accelerator helped add another critical piece to the puzzle,” commented Jantzen. “XLerateHealth helped refine the pitch, and much to our surprise, $1 million of the $5 million came as a direct result of our participation in XLerateHealth. The Illumina Accelerator enabled us to sequence an unprecedented amount of data at a fraction of the cost, and provided dollar for dollar match funding. The match funding provided $2 million of the $5 million Series A round, which was a tremendous catalyst, enabling us to close our round slightly oversubscribed.” 

“This has been the hardest I’ve ever worked but, hands down, the most fun I’ve ever had,” added Jantzen. “I think the coolest thing for me is that we are making a difference in the lives of infants and families, helping babies thrive. What better mission could there be? But it’s not all about impact; we’re building a solid, highly investable business. Closing our Series A was validation of our vision and opportunity, as well as our team.” 

Takeaways as a GP and entrepreneur

As a general partner at a venture capital fund and a cofounder of a startup, Jantzen has a unique point of view of fundraising. 

Sitting on the other side of the table as entrepreneurs, they gained an appreciation for all the founders that had come before them as investors for over 15 years.  

“Looking back, 2018 was a challenging year while we were fundraising.  With little gas in the tank, no one took a salary and the founders personally invested to bridge the company to closing,” said Jantzen. “From a personal standpoint, it was a difficult year, but we wholeheartedly believed in our vision and knew we would persevere. Having a cofounder to lean on throughout the process was critical to our success. I couldn’t imagine going through it as a lone founder.”

“We were surprised that we didn’t get more traction from female-founder-friendly investment groups that we thought would be excited about the opportunity,” added Jantzen. “We were fortunate to have Astia Angels and NextAct Fund invest, but most early-stage VCs and many angel groups are very risk-averse. We found ourselves spending a lot of time entertaining potential investors that we shouldn’t have given their biases and tire-kicking. There was one angel group we spent over a year in diligence with only to find that they couldn’t pull an investment together.  In retrospect, it turned out to be a blessing as not all money is good money. We are fortunate to have a syndicate of committed investors who share our vision and respect the experience and potential of this team.” 

The process of pitching a startup to dozens or even hundreds of investors is more of an artform that requires discipline and due diligence. 

“We had over two hundred iterations of the pitch deck. We treated every investor pitch as a unique opportunity,” she said. 

Jantzen’s largest frustrations were not knowing who was really serious and able to invest, investor indecisiveness, and lack of leadership within angel groups. 

“If I had to boil the entire ten months of fundraising to three takeaways, I would say: focus initially only on folks that can lead the deal; your relationship with your investors is much like a marriage, so be selective with who you choose; and above all, be persistent. Stay focused on the business and the opportunity, continue to share your passion and vision, and the right investors will ultimately buy in,” she said. 

Through Astarte Medical’s vision of improving outcomes in the first 1,000 days of life, Jantzen and team will have a meaningful and measurable impact on hundreds of thousands of infants and their families. Astarte Medical has already built the largest and most comprehensive dataset of preterm infant microbiome profiles and corresponding clinical data about both mom and baby. 

“We started the company based on Kate’s idea of using a ‘calculator’ that looks at microbial health risk factors of baby — gestational age at birth, how they are born, antibiotics administered, mom’s health, how they are fed, and so on — and marries those factors with microbiome sequence data and outcomes,” said Jantzen. “If we can connect all those factors together and identify which variables influence the establishment of the microbiome and how it changes during the course of the infant’s stay in the neonatal intensive care unit, we can build predictive algorithms to risk stratify infants and provide predictive models on growth that can help clinicians make better-informed care decisions around nutrition, feeding, and the use of antibiotics and probiotics. With our dataset, we’re developing MAGI, the Microbiome And Growth Indicator — a gut health profile.” 

Astarte Medical has also built NICUtrition, a feeding dashboard that simplifies the processes of documenting and logging feeding for preemies in the hospital. The more data it collects, the more powerful of an impact the data will be able to make in the future of personalized medicine. 

“Zeroing in on the best way to feed every baby is going to be huge for ensuring health in the first 1,000 days of life starting from conception through age two,” said Jantzen.

Jantzen is optimistic about the future, and as cofounder of a startup tackling major issues head-on and transitioning from GP of a fund aligned with her passions, Jantzen is thrilled to be in the space.

Nihar Neelakanti is an investor at Kauffman Fellows Fund, produces The Arena Podcast, and writes the Journal Newsletter by Kauffman Fellows. The firm’s investments include Zoom, Carta, Tally, Groww, One Concern, and Catalog DNA. Previously, he was an analyst at Correlation Ventures, a venture firm out of San Francisco that has invested in notable consumer companies such as Casper, Cotopaxi, and Imperfect Produce. He also cofounded Vendima Bags, a direct-to-consumer luxury bag startup.

Collin West is cofounding partner of Kauffman Fellows Fund and a Kauffman fellow from class ’17. He’s also founder and head of research of Kauffman Fellows Research Center. Previously, he was a principal at Correlation Ventures. He’s a 2x founder. He’s also pictured in the Guinness World Records for leading the first team to row a boat across the Arctic Ocean over 41 days and 1,000 miles non-stop and unsupported. 


Progentec Raises $5M in Series A Funding Led by Plains Venture Partners

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– Commercializing aiSLE DX Flare Prediction Test, a new blood-based biomarker laboratory test for the prediction of systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) flares

– Launching new research into digital biomarkers and the remote delivery of therapeutic programs

– Releasing aiSLE DX Lupus Classification/Diagnosis Test by mid-2020

NEWS PROVIDED BY Progentec Diagnostics, Inc. 

Jan 08, 2020, 11:49 ET

OKLAHOMA CITY, Jan. 8, 2020 /PRNewswire/ — Progentec, a leader in the development of nextgen diagnostics and digital therapeutics for the management of autoimmune diseases, announced today that it has completed a $5 million Series A funding round led by Plains Venture Partners, the Oklahoma Seed Capital Fund and the Oklahoma Angel Capital Fund II, managed by i2E Management Company (Oklahoma City), with participation from NMC Health (Abu Dhabi), OCA Ventures (Chicago), Stanford University (Stanford), the Oklahoma Medical Research Foundation (Oklahoma City), Mayo Clinic, and Burns & Stowers Investments LLC (Norman, OK).  The funding round provides go-to-market capital for Progentec’s CLIA laboratory and digital technologies for the management of lupus.

“With these funds we will be able to realize our vision of providing a comprehensive solution for management of lupus patients that combines proprietary blood biomarkers with high levels of sensitivity and specificity with continuous remote digital monitoring to benefit millions of lupus patients world-wide,” said Progentec’s CEO, Mohan Purushothaman. “In early 2020, Progentec will launch the aiSLE DX biomarker assay for early prediction of lupus flares.  Later this year, Progentec will launch an enhanced lupus disease diagnosis assay to correctly diagnose/classify lupus patients. These tests will support rheumatologists in making proactive treatment decisions to ensure better outcomes while reducing costs.”

The technology that powers the aiSLE DX test for Flare Prediction was featured at the 2019 ACR/ARP Annual Meeting during the ACR 19 Spotlight Slide Deck program. Progentec’s Dr. Melissa Munroe presented the research.

“Nextgen diagnostics are changing the world of healthcare by pairing unique blood-based biomarkers with digital biomarkers to improve patient outcomes while lowering the cost of disease management,” said Scott Meacham, the President and CEO of i2E Management Company, the fund manager for Plains Venture Partners, the Oklahoma Seed Capital Fund, and the Oklahoma Angel Capital Fund II. “Progentec’s aiSLE DX and other diagnostic tools paired with digital technologies will help patients, clinicians, and payors identify individualized treatment plans that can have significant and meaningful impact both on quality of life and cost of care.”

This funding will also support new research into digital biomarkers and remote delivery of digital therapeutic programs. “The cyclical nature of lupus isn’t just hard for doctors to manage. It’s hard on patients,” said Arif Sorathia, Progentec’s Director of Digital Products. “We are finding digital signals that help Lupus Warriors understand their individual patient journey.”

About Progentec Diagnostics, Inc.
Progentec is committed to improving access and health outcomes for patients in therapeutic areas with a high level of unmet need by combining clinically-validated diagnostic interventions with state-of-the-art digital technologies. Through collaborations with research institutions and health practitioners around the world, Progentec is working to reduce mortality and morbidity while improving care management and service delivery for chronic health conditions.

Contact:
Mohan Purushothaman
(973) 885-5242
mpurushothaman@progentec.com

Distance mental-health provider Regroup merges

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The Chicago-based startup has combined with an established player to form what it hopes will be an industry juggernaut.

Regroup Therapy, an innovative startup that uses technology to fill gaps in mental health coverage, has merged with established industry player InSight Telepsychiatry.

Regroup founder David Cohn will stay on at the combined company as chief growth officer, along with other Regroup executives who will be in senior roles.

Terms of the deal were not disclosed, but it creates the largest company in long-distance psychiatry, Cohn said. Mt. Laurel, N.J.-based InSight got into the mental-health business as a brick-and-mortar provider but moved into telehealth.

Cohn declined to provide specific financials but said the deal creates a combined company that will have triple the revenue of Chicago-based Regroup and about 150 employees. The merger will not result in layoffs.

Cohn, who founded the company in 2011, says Regroup merged with InSight to bulk up ahead of what he sees as a consolidation wave.

Regroup had signed up both public and private customers, from correctional facilities to insurers, looking to offer mental-health services. It specialized in scheduled psychiatry appointments, delivered via secure video chat.

InSight had developed an on-demand service to provide services to patients on an as-needed basis, something Regroup’s customers were seeking, Cohn said. “On-demand is a winner-take-all business. They got ahead of this.”

InSight also has a direct-to-consumer business. InSight, founded 20 years ago, took its first outside investment last year from private-equity firm Harbour Point Capital.

Regroup is backed by investors including local venture funds OCA Ventures, OSF Ventures, Impact Engine, Wasson Enterprise, HBS Angels, Hyde Park Angels and Further Fund. 

Genvid Technologies Announces Series B – Raises $27M to Accelerate Interactive Streaming Tools + Services

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NEW YORK, Nov. 26, 2019 /PRNewswire/ — Genvid Technologies Inc., a developer of interactive streaming technologies for game developers, media companies and sports broadcasters, announces its Series B fundraise.

Genvid’s SDK enables creators to build rich interactivity across multiple streaming platforms (Twitch, YouTube and more) on multiple infrastructures (AWS, Azure), and on multiple game engines (Unity, Unreal and proprietary engines).

Indie game developers and major game publishers are actively creating new streaming experiences that are only possible with Genvid’s tech stack. Genvid’s technology has already been used in many ways- most recently, powering the latest Counter-Strike: Global Offensive finals on Twitch, and various 5G showcases for Japan’s NTT Docomo.

The Series B funds will be used to further accelerate Genvid’s SDK feature development, as well as build an end-to-end services platform for developers who need live operations, integration, web development for their interactive streams. Additionally, the company will expand its business development efforts beyond the game industry into media and sports, since Genvid’s tech works as well with streaming video as it does with game-engine rendered content.

“We are already the standard toolkit for developers looking to bring rich, two-way, realtime interactivity to their games and broadcast,” says Genvid CEO Jacob Navok. “Our core tools will continue to improve as new features are added to take advantage of 5G, growth in interactive television, and to support the many new digital media formats being created by independent developers in partnership with Genvid, such as the metaverse-like experiences of Pipeworks Studio’s Project Eleusis.”

Leading the round is New York’s Galaxy Interactive, the division of merchant bank, Galaxy Digital, that focuses exclusively on the fast-growing interactive content and technology space, with an emphasis on investments in video game studios, esports, and more.

Sam Englebardt, head of Galaxy Interactive, will join Genvid’s board. “Galaxy Interactive and Genvid share the same vision,” says Sam. “We are strongly aligned around the belief that interactive streaming will be integral to the next major expansion of the gaming market.  Genvid’s technology will significantly grow the overall user base beyond traditional gamers themselves and unlock powerful new forms of content creation, consumption and monetization.   I believe every company in our portfolio, especially those which are utilizing blockchain and other technologies for the creation and ownership of digital goods, will benefit tremendously from the way Genvid’s technology will marry their products to the rapidly expanding streaming content infrastructure.”  

All of Genvid’s existing investors- March Capital Partners, OCA Ventures, Makers Fund, and Horizons Ventures, have joined in this round. And Genvid welcomes additional new investments from Valor Equity Partners and K5 Global.

Together with Galaxy Interactive, Genvid’s board and investor base represent unprecedented game industry insight and influence/investment in esports, game, media companies and other emerging technologies like blockchain and virtual and augmented reality. Valor Equity Partners is led by Antonio Gracias, who sits on esports team Cloud9’s board, while March Capital’s investments into Genvid have been spearheaded by Gregory Milken, who is co-owner of esports team Immortals Gaming Club. Makers Fund is one of the leading game content funds in the world today. And K5 Global is headed by Michael Kives, the former CAA agent who brings a wealth of media and sports connections.

Additionally, Genvid is announcing two new advisors who have been assisting Genvid over the last year. Matthew Ball is the former head of strategy for Amazon Studios and a leading thinker in the media industry, while Anna Sweet spent six years driving the growth of the Steam platform at Valve, led content strategy at Oculus and is now a games industry investor and advisor.

“The media industry has spent most of the last decade focused on shifting content online and figuring out how to charge for it,” says Matthew Ball. “The next decade will be about reinventing this content and creating brand new formats native to digital delivery. Interactivity will be at the core of this opportunity. And Genvid will be one of the key enablers of and creative partners behind these experiences.”

Genvid is also announcing the establishment of its European office in Berlin for business development and technical support, and its live operations office in Irvine, California to oversee infrastructure for clients. The company has over 50 employees in six offices worldwide, including New York, Montreal, Santa Monica, Irvine, Berlin and Tokyo.

About Genvid Technologies
Founded in 2016 by game industry veterans and backed by Galaxy Interactive, Horizons Ventures, Makers Fund, March Capital Partners and OCA Ventures, Genvid offers an SDK for game developers to integrate into their games and allows game developers to make revolutionary broadcasts. The Genvid SDK is a simple-to-use middleware, flexible enough to run on any streaming platform and infrastructure that developers want to support. As a result, livestreams can be monetized through transactions that are uniquely targeted to the individual watching, leading to a significant revenue opportunity for game developers through sponsorships and in-stream purchases. The first interactive streaming tools built specifically for game developers, the Genvid SDK can be downloaded for free at https://www.genvidtech.com.

About Galaxy Interactive
Galaxy Interactive is the newest investment division of Galaxy Digital, a leading merchant bank founded by Mike Novogratz and dedicated to blockchain technology and digital assets.  Investing from its $325 million Galaxy Digital EOS VC Fund (a partnership between Galaxy Digital and software development company, Block.one), Galaxy Interactive focuses exclusively on companies operating at the intersection of interactive content, blockchain and other technologies, with particular emphasis on video game studios, eSports, digital objects and related infrastructure tech.  The division is based in New York City and is spearheaded by Galaxy Digital Co-Founder and Partner, Sam Englebardt. 

SOURCE Genvid Technologies

10 tech startups focused on improving life for older Americans

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Baby Boomers have immense buying power, and Silicon Valley is taking notice.

by Benjamin Lampkin

Some of the most famous and successful companies to emerge from Silicon Valley, from Facebook to Uber to Airbnb, have grown and benefited from investments and funding by venture capital firms.

Startups aimed at consumers over the age of 50 account for just 0.7% of VC funding. But a number of companies have begun to tap into those same investors to reach an underserved market with more than 70 million Americans.

1. Papa: Grandkids-on-Demand

The premise of Papa sounds like it might be a joke at first, but this company’s “grandkids on-demand” concept is anything but. Founded in 2016, Papa connects seniors with college students who are ready to help with transportation needs, cooking, filling prescriptions, or simply hanging out and chatting.

In October 2018, the company raised $2.4 million from Initialized Capital and Sound Ventures to help expand its reach from Florida into five additional states, and just announced an additional $10 million round.

2. Silvernest: Airbnb alternative

The number of home-sharing sites, popularized by Airbnb, has swelled in recent years, and Silvernest has joined the fray by focusing on older homeowners and potential renters who are interested in letting or sharing a room.

3. Siren: Smart socks

Xinhua/Li Ying via Getty Images

The idea of smart socks would have seemed inconceivable not even a decade ago. But Siren CEO Ran Ma’s utilization of NeuroFabric, which has sensors woven into the sock’s fabric and can sense temperature changes, allows the socks to monitor feet at multiple points and contact a physician and the patient if inflammation is detected.

The San Francisco-based company raised over $3 million in funding from DCM, Khosla Ventures, and Founders Fund, and also won the TechCrunch Hardware Battlefield competition in 2017.  

4. Eargo: Stylish hearing aids

Hearing aids, initially called ear trumpets, have been around since the 17th century, but digital technology has advanced the device significantly in the past few decades. Eargo was founded in 2010 and unveiled its first device in 2015; it now boasts three different styles that can be purchased directly from the company.

In March 2019, they received a $52-million round of financing from Future Fund, NEA, the Charles and Helen Schwab Foundation, Nan Fung Life Sciences, and Maveron, bringing their total funding to $152 million. 

5. Willow: Disposable underwear

Adult diapers might not be the kind of product that comes to mind when thinking of Silicon Valley startups, but Willow jumped into the multi-billion industry last year with a more modern approach, eschewing the bulky padding for natural fibers and a sleeker design.

They garnered $2.5 million in a pair of fundraising rounds from FirstMark Capital, Two River, and Wildcat Venture Partners.  

6. Honor: Home-health tech

After pivoting to a national home-health network that connects and partners with local agencies and home care operators, Honor raised $50 million in 2018 to bring its total funding to $115 million. The San Francisco-based company is backed by 25 investors but received its latest round from Prosus and Alumni Ventures Group. 

7. WHILL: Personal electric vehicles

Tomohiro Ohsumi/Getty Images

The Model Ci wheelchair, or personal electric vehicle, was named one of the Best Inventions of 2018 by TIME Magazine and snagged a Best of Innovation Award at the 2018 Consumer Electronics Show.

A $45 million round of funding was completed in 2018, bringing the total amount of funding to $90 million from around 21 investors. 

8. Rowheels: A better wheelchair

Manual wheelchair users have their own innovator to thank, as Wisconsin-based Rowheels introduced a propulsion system that allows the driver to pull back on the handrims to move forward. In addition to its wheelsets, which attach to an existing chair, they’ve also unveiled their own wheelchair model.

Across eight rounds of funding the company has raised $4.5 million from WISC Partners. 

9. Cake: Digital planning

Created by engineer Suelin Chen and palliative specialist Dr. Mark Zhang, Cake is a digital service where consumers can create and store end-of-life decisions like wills, advance directives and medical interventions, estate planning, and memorial services. The online platform lets users answer simple questions to create a detailed checklist, upload documents, and access them at any time.

Multiple backers, including Pillar VC and Arkitect, have granted $1.6 million to the Boston-based company. 

10. Rendever: Virtual reality

The aging-in-place population is quickly growing, & technology needs to support this large group. We were delighted to give some early insights into how #vr is connecting both families & entire communities, no matter where they age, at the #CoxSmartHome #ConnectedIndependence

View image on Twitter

A virtual reality company working with retirement communities, Rendever offers a way for people to overcome feelings of isolation. By using VR headsets and software like Google Maps, clients can navigate real-world locations and even experience visits to their former homes.

Rendever hasn’t raised an eye-popping amount like the other companies on this list, but is a good example of using technology in new ways to benefit people as they age.

Balto, Real-time AI Call-Guidance Software, raises additional $3 million in Seed funding

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Balto, the world’s first artificial intelligence software for real-time call guidance and coaching, announced today that it closed a $3 million seed financing round.

ST. LOUIS, Sept. 26, 2019 /PRNewswire/ — Participating in the round are OCA Ventures (co-lead), Stage Venture Partners (co-lead), Jump Capital, Cultivation Capital, SaaS Ventures, TIA Ventures, and Sandalphon Capital. This round of funding will be used to scale the organization’s sales and marketing capabilities, expand headcount, and make major investments in applying A.I. to help sales teams make their sales messaging more effective.

CEO Marc Bernstein, COO Chris Kontes, and CTO Davidson Girard founded Balto in January 2017 to address the multibillion-dollar need to optimize revenue opportunities and eliminate costly mistakes on sales calls. Since inception, Balto has guided almost 10 million phone calls and has consistently doubled its customer base every five months.

Balto uses artificial intelligence to analyze both sides of the conversation and instantly deliver critical information to sales representatives before they lose valuable sales calls. Balto is fully customizable and is the only call guidance software solution that can provide real-time feedback without storing any transcripts or call recordings. Balto has attracted customers across all industries, from 2-person sales teams to fast-growing publicly traded companies in financial services, healthcare, home improvement, pharmaceuticals, utilities, retail, insurance, collections, and enterprise technology.

“We are thrilled to be leading a second round in Balto Software just 13 months after our first,” says Alex Rubalcava of Stage Venture Partners. “Balto has built a world-leading real-time call guidance product that brings unprecedented AI-powered coaching to every agent on the call center floor. Balto also empowers sales managers with speech analytics and live data so they know, for the first time, how well their teams are selling in the moment.”

“The A.I. is powerful, the rep coaching is effective and the results are measurable. Balto has built a category-leading product and developed sales and marketing functions far ahead of typical seed stage companies,” says Tamim Abdul Majid of OCA Ventures.

With this newest round of funding, Balto is thrilled to continue expanding its St. Louis-based team and serving its customers nationwide.

About Balto

Balto is the #1 AI technology for real-time call guidance and coaching. Balto’s software solution listens to both sides of a call and instantly delivers critical information and feedback to sales representatives before they lose valuable sales calls. Balto is fully customizable and current customers include sales teams, contact centers, and customer service groups in sectors ranging from debt collections to healthcare and home improvement.

For more information, contact: info@baltosoftware.com
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SpotHero Scoops Up $50M

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By Jim Dallke -August 22, 2019

Chicago parking app SpotHero landed $50 million in new funding as it looks to help more people find on-demand parking.

The round was led by Macquarie Capital, an Australia-based investment bank. Other backers in the round include Insight Venture Partners, Global Founders Capital, OCA Ventures and AutoTech Ventures.

SpotHero has now raised $118 million since it launched in 2011. It’s the latest Chicago startup to crack the VC funding century mark, joining AMP Americas, Fourkites, Sprout Social, and G2 Crowd, who’ve all crossed over $100 million in total capital raised within the last 12 months.

SpotHero now offers drivers access to 7,000 off-street parking locations in 300 cities, making it the largest marketplace to find a parking spot in North America, the company said.

The startup said that its all-time sales have now reached more than $500 million, and it’s on pace to reach $1 billion in all-time transactions by 2020.

“By standardizing the way parking is bought and sold, we are introducing the same visibility into parking inventory that people expect from the airline or hospitality industries,” Mark Lawrence, CEO and co-founder of SpotHero, said in a statement.

Earlier this year, SpotHero announced SpotHero for Fleets, a parking-as-a-service solution for the car-sharing economy that helps fleet providers like Car2Go find parking—while also preparing for the industry’s eventual transition to autonomous vehicles. It launched SpotHero for Business in 2017, which helps employers manage parking spend. The startup said earlier this year that it has 600 enterprise clients on the platform.

mPulse Mobile ranks on 100+ artificial intelligence companies to know in healthcare | 2019

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Jenna Bloom and Laura Dyrda – Friday, July 19th, 2019

Artificial intelligence and machine learning are quickly becoming an integral part of healthcare delivery.

Both on the clinical care and operational side of healthcare organizations, AI has is powering technology that keeps patients safe and improves efficiency for the revenue cycle, supply chain and more.

Here are 100-plus companies in the healthcare space using artificial intelligence.

To add a company to this list, contact Laura Dyrda at ldyrda@beckershealthcare.com.

Aidoc (Tel Aviv, Israel). Aidoc provides radiologists with artificial intelligence (AI) for clinical settings. Their FDA cleared solution detects time-sensitive pathologies and prioritizes them in the radiology workflow, allowing leading health systems to improve outcomes and patient safety.

AiCure (New York City). AiCure is an AI and advanced data analytics company that uses video, audio and behavioral data to better understand the connection between patients, disease and treatment. It allows physicians to have access to clinical and patient insights.

Aiva Health (Los Angeles). Aiva Health developed Aiva, the first voice-powered care assistant. The software understands requests and instantly connects patients with the correct physician for communication.

Apixio (San Mateo, Calif.). Apixio’s AI platform transforms disparate text and coded data into actionable knowledge and health insights for better decision making.

Arterys (San Francisco). Arterys is a leader in intelligent, cloud-based medical imaging software. It created the first medical imaging cloud platform powered by artificial intelligence.

AtomWise (San Francisco). AtomWise developed AtomNet, a drug-designing technology based on convolutional neural networks. It aims to help its partners deliver better medicines faster.

Ayasdi (Menlo Park, Calif.). Ayasdi designs applications and an enterprise-grade software platform that allows healthcare organizations to analyze and build predictive models that solve complex challenges in the industry by using big data or highly dimensional data sets.

Babylon Health (London). Babylon is a digital healthcare provider that aims to create an internationally accessible and affordable health system for all.

Belong.life (New York City). Belong’s end-to-end patient engagement platform (PEP) for payers, providers, pharma and advocacy groups utilizes AI and machine learning to deliver hyper-personalized patient experiences. Additionally, the Belong “Beating Cancer Together” app unites 200,000 global cancer patients, caregivers and healthcare professionals, delivering AI-powered personalized news, peer support, direct access to doctors, clinical trial matching services and document management tools.

Bigfoot Biomedical (Milpitas, Calif.). Bigfoot Biomedical is the creator of the automated insulin delivery system. The company works to improve the health and safety of those suffering from Type 1 diabetes through the creation of smart devices.

BioXcel Therapeutics (New Haven, Conn.). BioXcel Therapeutics is a clinical stage biopharmaceutical company that uses AI to create medicines in neuroscience and immuno-oncology.

Bot M.D. (Singapore). Bot M.D. is an AI application that acts like an assistant. It can answer clinical questions, transcribe dictated case notes and automatically organize images and files.

Buoy Health (Boston). Buoy is an artificial intelligence computational platform that allows ill users to understand their symptoms, get answers and form a treatment plan through chatting.

Butterfly Network (Guilford, Conn.). Butterfly Network is a digital health company that works to make medical imaging universally accessible and affordable. The company created Butterfly iQ, the world’s first handheld whole-body ultrasound system that connects to a smartphone.

Cardinal Analytx Solutions (Palo Alto, Calif.). Cardinal Analytx Solutions, an artificial intelligence-enabled health insights company, helps organizations predict and identify future health risks, improve patient outcomes and costs and develop an action plan for reducing such determinants.

Cathworks (Aliso Viejo, Calif.). Cathworks delivers an image-based approach for assessing FFR (functional flow reserve) in the cath lab using data from standard angiograms. Cathworks’ CE marked and FDA approved solution creates a personalized 3D model of each patient’s arteries and uses algorithms to simulate blood flow and assess the impact of arterial blockages without the use of a pressure wire.

Change Healthcare (Nashville, Tenn.). Change Healthcare is a healthcare technology company delivering software, analytics and solutions to improve the healthcare system. The company includes artificial intelligence in several products, most recently unveiling Claims Lifecycle Artificial Intelligence in February.

Clarify Health Solutions (San Francisco). Clarify Health Solutions uses technology and an analytics platform to solve many of the complex challenges facing healthcare professionals and to personalize and optimize patient care journeys.

Cloud Pharmaceuticals (Research Triangle Park, N.C.). Cloud Pharmaceuticals uses new, innovative cloud computing technology to accelerate the process of designing drugs and drug candidates. The process is called Quantum Molecular Design.

CloudMedx (Palo Alto, Calif.). CloudMedx uses AI, data-driven models to improve clinical insights, revenue cycle management and patient care.

Curemetrix (La Jolla, Calif.). Curemetrix is working toward developing the next generation of medical image analysis technology. In particular, it uses a patent-pending algorithm to create more precise and advanced tools for mammography.

Cyrcadia Health (Reno, Nev.). Cyrcadia Health designed a wearable, intelligent breast monitor device that uses breast patches that identify circadian patterns within breast cells to keep physicians aware of patients’ breast health.

Day Zero Diagnostics (Boston). Day Zero Diagnostics is develoipng a rapid in-vitro diagnostic for identification of bacterial pathogens and antibiotic susceptibility profiles. The company combines genomic next generation sequencing (NGS) and machine learning to combat antimicrobial resistant infections, enabling physicians to switch from harmful and costly broad-spectrum antibiotics to targeted antibiotic therapy within hours instead of days.

Deep Genomics (Toronto, Canada). Deep Genomics uses their AI platform to rapidly direct them to the best drug candidates. The company is designing new ways of detecting and treating disease using biologically accurate AI technology.

Deep Lens (Columbus, Ohio). Deep Lens manages the largest digital pathology cloud platform that allows pathology groups to collaborate on cancer research.

Desktop Genetics (Cambridge, Mass.). Desktop Genetics works to discover and treat the root genetic causes of human disease and has emerged as a leader in genome editing technology. Its core technology is DESKGEN AI, which powers DESKGEN CRISPR that helps with drug discovery and functional genomics.

Digital Reasoning (Nashville, Tenn.). In healthcare, Digital Reasoning deploys AI-powered care management software within health systems to augment the care team and accelerate the entire care process, delivering a positive impact on clinical, financial and operational outcomes.

DreaMed Diabetes (Petah Tikva, Israel). DreaMed Diabetes’ management platform uses unique cloud-based AI technology to provide patients with insulin treatment insights and plans. It simplifies the complexity of diabetes data.

Enlitic (San Francisco). Enlitic connects human and artificial intelligence and data to advance medical diagnostics. The company collects and analyzes data and designs medical software that allows physicians to diagnosis faster and more accurately.

FDNA (Boston). FDNA uses artificial intelligence to analyze genetic, phenotypic information databases to detect physiological patterns that reveal disease-causing genetic variations.

Flatiron Health (New York City). Flatiron Health developed OncoCloud, a shared technology platform that connects community, oncologists, academics, hospitals, life science researchers and regulators to better treat cancer.

Futurus Group (Irvine, Calif.). Futurus Group is the first AI machine-learning company to develop an algorithm to predict gratitude within a hospital’s grateful-patient program. Futurus Group’s patent-pending G2G (Gratitude to Give) algorithm leverages data within a hospitals EMR, donor CRM and patient satisfaction data to predict individuals most likely to make a gift to a hospital or medical center.

doc.ai (Palo Alto, Calif.). doc.ai developed an application that collects personal health data that can be used by medical researchers to accelerate discovery or as health insights for the user.

Ezra (New York City). Ezra designed full-body, MRI technology that detects up to 13 cancers in women and 11 in men.

FitGenie (Atlanta). FitGenie is an AI, nutrition application that aids people by providing tools and instructions for maintaining and optimizing nutritional health. More specifically, it is a smart calorie counter that tells users what to eat to reach their goals.

Freenome (South San Francisco, Calif.). Freenome seeks to transform the way medicine is practiced by using artificial intelligence, biology and computer science to detect disease earlier and more accurately.

Gauss Surgical (Menlo Park, Calif.). Gauss Surgical is the leading developer of an AI-enabled platform for real time monitoring of surgical blood loss.

Genoox (Palo Alto, Calif.). Genoox delivers a data-driven, cloud-based solution that unlocks the value of genomics. The company’s adaptive AI solution leverages proprietary datasets that transform raw genetic information into actionable real world evidence enabling customers to develop customized clinical NGS genetic applications with accelerated turnaround time delivering insights within hours instead of weeks.

Ginger.io (San Francisco). Ginger.io provides clients with an on-demand coach, therapist and psychiatrist for instant care.

H1 (New York City). H1 is a live data insights platform for diseases, driven by machine learning. The platform is able to find data from any public clinical and scholarly database in the world, drawing on curated data from “hundreds of thousands” of website profiles and conference presentations. H1’s tools search across more than 250,000 academic researchers, 250,000 clinical trials, 50 million journal articles, and 750,000 clinicians and physicians.

H2O.ai (Mountain View, Calif.). H2O.ai is the creator of the leading open source data science and machine learning platform, Driverless AI.

Healint (Singapore). Healint designed the leading migraine application, Migraine Buddy, which tracks users’ migraines, understands triggers and shares migraine history with physicians to better treat and efficiently improve the invisible pain.

Health at Scale (San Jose, Calif.). Health at Scale uses machine intelligence to deliver precision care by matching patients to the right treatments by the right providers at the right times.

Health Fidelity (San Mateo, Calif.). Health Fidelity uses technology and expertise to allow organizations participating in Medicare Advantage, ACA commercial, Managed Medicaid or Medicare ACO programs to provide risk adjustment solutions.

HealthReveal (New York City). HealthReveal uses artificial intelligence to reduce costs, improve outcomes and quality of life and save lives for the chronically ill.

IBM Watson Health (Chicago). IBM Watson Health aims to solve health challenges using data, analytics and AI. The company works with more than 300 hospitals and healthcare organizations to make decision based on data.

iCAD (Nashua, N.H.). iCAD is a global medical technology leader that uses artificial intelligence to provide cancer detection and therapy solutions so physicians can detect cancers earlier.

IDx (Coralville, Iowa). IDx developed the first automated diabetic retinopathy diagnostic AI machine called IDx-DR. The company works to transform healthcare through the automation of medical diagnosis and treatment.

Imperativ (New York City). Imperativ’s Enterprise Intelligence Platform delivers digital twin modules and associated applications that connect and optimize the internet of medical things for decision making.

Innovaccer (San Francisco). Innovaccer is a healthcare data activation company that works to improve care delivery by making full use of all the data the healthcare industry has collected.

Inovalon (Bowie, Md.). Inovalon is a healthcare technology company designing platforms to empower data-driven healthcare. The company’s leading ONE Platform allows clients and partners to use datasets, analytics and technologies to improve healthcare outcomes and economics.

Insightin Health (Baltimore). Insightin Health created the only existing AI platform for members’ complete lifecycle. The platform delivers a personalized experience using health data and social determinants to identify the best ways to communicate with others.

Inspiren (New York City). Inspiren is the inventor of iN, an automated patient safety monitoring device that aims to reduce injuries and deaths by ensuring patients receive proper care.

Jvion (Johns Creek, Ga.). Jvion uses prescriptive analytics to prevent harm and lower costs. Its technology identifies patients on a risk trajectory, determines if that trajectory can be changed and identifies possible interventions, if applicable.

K Health (New York City). K Health developed K, the first personalized healthcare application that allows patients to check their symptoms, explore treatment options and chat with doctors for free.

KenSci (Seattle). KenSci uses AI to help providers and payers intervene earlier and at lower costs. Its platform helps uncover clinical, operational and financial risks by aggregating data.

Lunit (Seoul, South Korea). Lunit is a medical AI software company that uses cutting-edge technology and medical data to discover, design and develop imaging biomarkers.

Massive Bio (New York City). Massive Bio is a marketplace that connects oncology patients and their treating oncologist to the cutting edge advanced care options and clinical trials while enabling enterprises to get access to patients and their information to enhance oncology research. Massive Bio resides at the intersection of patient acquisition, artificial intelligence based scalable pre-screening, operationalization support and real world data to connect patients to oncology trials. 

MaxQ AI (Andover, Mass.). MaxQ AI is a leader in medical diagnostic AI. The company’s software uses artificial intelligence to interpret medical images to help physicians make more accurate and faster diagnoses of strokes, brain trauma and other conditions.

Medable (Palo Alto, Calif.). Medable is pioneering a new category of life science technologies that replace the stagnant and siloed data of traditional ePRO, eCOA, EDC, and eSource with an intelligent and unified end-to-end (E2E) platform for clinical trial execution. Medable’s E2E platform connects patients, sites, CRO’s and sponsors to work together as a connected and empowered team in clinical research, to bring new medicines to patients faster.

Medalogix (Nashville, Tenn.). Medalogix is a pioneer data science company focusing on home health and hospice. Its technology identifies risk, creates action, improves patient outcomes and delivers ROI.

Medasense (Israel). Medasense’s NOL Index is the first objective pain assessment index for accurate and personalized pain care.

MedAware (Israel). MedAware’s technology uses big data analytics and machine learning algorithms to analyze electronic medical records to learn how physicians treat patients to identify and eliminate a wide range of medication errors.

Medial EarlySign (Hod Hasharon, Israel). Medial EarlySign helps healthcare systems with their early detection and prevention of high-burden diseases. The company’s machine learning-based software finds subtle, early signs of elevated patient risk trajectories in routine, existing EHR and lab data.

MedWhat (San Francisco). MedWhat is a medical artificial intelligence company that is building an algorithmic architecture to achieve human-level intelligence in medicine. The software acts as a personal assistant by answering medical and health questions for consumers and doctors.

Mendel.ai (San Jose, Calif.). Mendel is a network of research sites powered by AI and clinical insights that works to unlock the full potential of clinical data relevant to cancer research.

mPulse Mobile (Encino, Calif.). mPulse is the leading developer of conversational AI solutions for the healthcare industry. It improves health outcomes and business efficiencies.

Myia Labs (San Francisco). Myia Labs is an intelligent health monitoring platform that helps prevent illness, manages chronic conditions and redefines quality of life by transforming real-world data into clinical, objective insights.

NarrativeDx (Austin, Texas). NarrativeDx uses AI to identify insights from patient hospital experience feedback to increase ranking, scores and referrals and reduce nurse turnover.

NextHealth Technologies (Denver). NextHealth’s AI and machine learning analytics platform combines data-driven decision making into workflow to improve healthcare affordability.

Notable (San Mateo, Calif.). Notable uses wearable technology, voice interface, friction free integrations and artificial intelligence to make patient-clinician interaction more efficient and effective.

NuMedii (San Mateo, Calif.). NuMedii is a leader of using big data, AI and biology to accelerate the discovery of precision therapies and drugs.

Numerate (San Bruno, Calif.). Numerate uses AI technology to simplify the complex process of molecular drug design.

Olive (Colorado Springs, Colo.). Olive is a custom software solution provider that offers a list of services that empowers organizational growth by building their technology engines.

Pager (New York City). Pager simplifies the healthcare experience by connecting patients and their care team in a single AI chat to make smarter and faster health decisions.

Paige.AI (Franklin D. Roosevelt Island, N.Y.). Paige.AI uses artificial intelligence to help pathologists work more efficiently, researchers discover new insights and clinicians improve patient care.

PathAI (Boston). PathAI develops technology that helps pathologists make rapid and accurate diagnoses. It also helps patients receive the most personalized, effective treatment for their condition.

Pathway Genomics (San Diego). Pathway Genomics provides physicians and their patients with actionable and accurate precision healthcare information to improve and maintain health and wellness.

Pearl (Columbus, Ohio). Pearl uses care management services and remote health, home monitoring technology to effectively and efficiently provide wider quality access. The company helps government agencies and commercial enterprises provide a wider access of quality healthcare to all populations.

Picwell (Philadelphia). Picwell’s technology simplifies the complex benefits decision-making process by matching users with their optimal plan.

Potrero Medical (Hayward, Calif.). Potrero Medical is a predictive health company that develops smart sensors and artificial intelligence. It is currently creating a predictive health platform to help physicians better predict adverse outcomes in critical care settings.

Prognos (New York City). Prognos maintains the largest sources of lab data across 50 disease areas with records for 200 million patients.

Proscia (Philadelphia). Proscia developed Concentriq, a digital pathology platform, and AI applications that have and continue to transform the practice of pathology by focusing on personalized, data-centric medicine.

Pure Storage (Mountain View, Calif.). Pure Storage, a leading data storage company, allows its clients to efficiently deliver real-time secure data to perform operations.

QuartzClinical (Chicago). QuartzClinilcal uses advanced technology to help users achieve better outcomes through more cost-efficient and effective measures. The software uses predictive models, financial insights and personal health records to help make better clinical decisions

Qventus (Mountain View, Calif.). Qventus uses artificial intelligence and machine learning to help healthcare organizations operate more efficiently and simply.

Recondo Technology (Denver). Recondo Technology’s revenue cycle content engine intelligently automates the healthcare revenue cycle using a combination of AI technologies that include robotic process automation, clinical language processing and machine learning models based on extensive domain expertise. Among the first companies to develop AI specifically for the healthcare revenue cycle, today Recondo’s accurate, automated and actionable solutions replace expensive manual communication between payers and providers with high volume, high speed transactions in over 900 organizations.

Renalytix AI (Cardiff, United Kingdom). Renalytix AI develops artificial intelligent clinical diagnostic solutions for kidney disease. Its products improve risk assessment, clinical care and patient stratification for drug clinical trials.

ReveKnow (Lake Forest, Calif.). ReveKnow provides low-cost access to advanced machine learning algorithms that can predict a patient’s propensity to pay a bill, calculate percentage to FPL for presumptive charity, or estimate the probability that a denied account can be overturned. All of these services are designed for smaller budget-conscious hospitals to optimize their limited resources and focus first on the accounts most likely to produce a positive outcome.

Risalto Health (New York City). Risalto Health’s AI platform uses big data to identify the best providers and advice on care for patients suffering from neck, knee and hip pain problems.

Robin Healthcare (Berkeley, Calif.). Robin Healthcare created Robin, an AI device that completes all clinical documentation and billable notes for physicians during appointments with patients.

Sensely (San Francisco). Sensely is an application that intelligently connects insurance plan members with health related advice and resources and insurance services.

Sentrian (Australia). Sentrian provides organizations’ employees with the tools, skills and support to work technology. It provides the pieces for companies to build their IT system and grow their business.

SkinIO (Chicago). SkinIO is a mobile application that takes approximately five minutes to perform a full-body scan of moles or other concerning skin marks by using camera taken images. It also allows physicians to track any changes in skin condition.

SkinVision (Amsterdam). SkinVision’s combined technology and knowledge helps users check their skin for signs of skin cancer with instant results on a smartphone.

SmartPlate (Philadelphia). SmartPlate is the first intelligent wellbeing platform that uses advanced photo recognition and AI technology to identify, weigh and analyze anything users eat. The device instantly tracks calories by using a mobile application and a smart plate.

Sopris Health (Denver). Sopris Health developed the first AI medical scribe technology that works to improve clinical efficiency and decrease administrative burden.

Spring Health (New York City). Spring Health created and implements Precision Mental Healthcare, a method of accurately predicting the right treatment and accelerating mental health recovery by using the same scientific principles behind precision medicine.

Suki (Redwood City, Calif.). Suki is an artificial intelligence-powered, voice-enabled digital assistant for doctors that enables physicians to focus on patient care by reducing administrative burden. It’s personalized for each doctor, gets smarter with ongoing use, and can be scaled rapidly and inexpensively. 

Tagnos (Aliso Viejo, Calif.). Tagnos developed a clinical logistics automation solution to orchestrate care delivery. The application predicts and optimizes patient flow.

Touchkin (Bengaluru, India). Touchkin’s Wysa is a pioneer AI-driven empathetic, compassionate conversation coach that instantly helps users improve their mental health.

TrialJectory (New York City). TrialJectory is an AI-based trial matching platform that uses cancer patients’ self-reported medical records to facilitate clinical trial search, matching and enrollment.

twoXAR (Mountain View, Calif.). twoXAR is an artificial intelligence-driven drug discovery company that uses its platforms to identify promising drug candidates, de-risk opportunities and progress drug candidates to clinics.

Univfy (Los Altos, Calif.). Univfy is dedicated to helping women and couples wanting to have a baby increase IVF access, success and affordability through an AI platform. The software allows physicians to form accurate, personalized IVF treatment prediction plans.

Verge Genomics (South San Francisco). Verge Genomics uses advanced machine learning, computational genomics and new insights into neuroscience to reduce the time and cost of drug discovery for patients suffering from neurodegenerative disease.

VIDA Diagnostics (Coralville, Iowa). VIDA Diagnostics provides clients with software and services that can aid in early detection, evaluation and treatment planning of lung disease.

VisiQuate (Santa Rosa, Calif.). VisiQuate helps its clients achieve peak business health through artificial intelligent technology that integrates data and presents it as role-personalized insights and actionable workflows.

Viz.ai (San Francisco). Viz.ai uses artificial intelligence-powered products to synchronize stroke care and improve access to life-saving therapies. It detects and alerts stroke teams and allows them to communicate in real time.

Wellframe (Boston). Wellframe uses AI technology and user data to generate real-time insights for care teams to improve health quality and outcomes.

Welltok (Denver). Welltok is a data-driven enterprise company that allows users to get actively involved in their health with the Consumer Activation Platform. It is a single platform for personalized health and wellbeing resources that powers growth and retention initiatives and improves healthcare value.

Woebot Labs (San Francisco). Woebot Labs aims to make mental health accessible to all with its Woebot application. It gives users daily lessons and check-ins and allows them to have conversations to think through situations and improve mental wellness.

Your.MD (London). Your.MD is a free mobile application that uses AI to give users health formation to help them make the best health choices.

Zebra (Lincolnshire, Ill.). Zebra’s products, software and services help healthcare professionals improve patient outcomes and business results by connecting them with assets and data.

Zephyr Health (Phoenix). Zephyr Health’s AI platform merges and analyzes public and private data sets for the Life Sciences industry. The company was acquired by Anju Software in 2018.

Zingbox (Mountain View, Calif.). Zingbox delivers am AI powered cloud-based platform which provides healthcare organizations with visibility, tracking, management and cybersecurity capabilities for the Internet of Things (IoT). The company’s comprehensive solution enables service providers in healthcare to deliver uninterrupted and secure critical care and service to patients and customers and gain organization-wide operational efficiencies.

VYNCA RAISES $10.3 MILLION IN SERIES B FUNDING

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Will Support Rapid Expansion of Vynca’s Advance Care Planning Solution

PALO ALTO, Calif., June 19, 2019 /PRNewswire/ — Vynca, the nation’s leading advance care planning solution, announced today that it has secured $10.3 million in Series B funding from First Trust Capital Partners, OCA Ventures, and Spectrum Health Ventures, in addition to key strategic individual investors. Current Vynca investors, including Generator Ventures and the Ziegler LinkAge Longevity Fund also participated. The funding will help fuel the company’s expansion into new geographies and drive new product development. Rachel Kern of First Trust Capital Partners, Phil Fogg Jr. of Marquis Companies, and Arnie E. Burchianti, II will join the Company’s Board of Directors. Dr. Scott Lancaster of Spectrum Health Ventures will join as a Board Observer.

Vynca’s end-to-end solution supports health care organizations to implement and scale high-quality advance care planning so that every person’s care preferences are honored at the end-of-life. Vynca technology supports education and engagement in advance care planning conversations, shared decision making, digital completion of documents, and ensures universal document accessibility for individuals, their caregivers, and health care providers across the care continuum.

“We’re pleased to receive the support and insight from these highly strategic health care investors who share our vision of creating a national advance care planning network,” stated Ryan Van Wert, M.D., co-founder and CEO of Vynca. “Our continued growth will ensure that more individuals have their voices heard, and that health care providers have immediate access to care preferences, so that every person’s end-of-life wishes are known and honored.”

Partnering with over 80 hospitals, as well as health plans, ACOs, and five state registries, Vynca clients are realizing an impact in terms of higher quality of care at the end-of-life and the avoidance of unwanted health care interventions.

“We are excited to partner with Vynca as the company continues to build on their position as the leading advance care planning solution,” said Rachel Kern of First Trust Capital Partners. “Vynca’s state registry partnerships and impressive growth are a testament to how they are setting a new standard for end-of-life care, ensuring that accurate care plans are available in critical moments. We look forward to being part of Vynca’s continued growth and success.”

“Spectrum Health Ventures supports innovations that can reduce cost, improve quality, and increase patient engagement and satisfaction,” said Scott Lancaster, M.D., clinical director for Spectrum Health Ventures. “We are proud to partner with Vynca, whose impressive growth and innovative platforms are providing national leadership by reflecting patient preferences for end-of-life care.”

CONTACT: Emelia Altschul, 914-260-1621, emelia@vyncahealth.com