A spooky ‘good news’ roundup: AtlantiCare rolling out Orbita AI, Health Wildcatters Pitch Day, RapidSOS, HealthJoy fundings and more

November 1, 2022 | by

This Editor has noticed the gloomy tone of the past few weeks’ postings. She has decided to ‘accentuate the positive, eliminate the negative” (in Johnny Mercer’s words) using the last few hours of Halloween (boo!) with nothing but Good News.

A health system is actually implementing an AI platform! AtlantiCare, which is based in southern New Jersey, will be rolling out the Orbita virtual artificial intelligence platform across its system, which includes more than 100 locations across Southern New Jersey. Orbita’s capabilities can link patients with virtual assistants and AI to streamline routine tasks such as scheduling, patient reporting, medication adherence, and care management. It also recognizes and translates more than 100 languages. According to Becker’s, Orbita’s functions will be rolled out in stages with the digital ‘front door’ going live in September and patient outbound communication capabilities in 2023.

Dallas’ Health Wildcatters finishes up its 2022 cohort with an evening Pitch Day at their new HQ on Thursday 10 November. Their 11 startups will present starting at 4pm in two sessions. With two networking sessions, the festivities start at 3:30 and go to 8pm. Health Wildcatters has relocated to a 23 acre campus, Pegasus Park, targeted to entrepreneurs and startups in biotech and healthcare to encourage development and collaboration. More information and registration links

And fundings are actually happening–for companies with an established success story + track record–and those at a very early stage where there’s promise, the risk is shared, and the investment is modest. 

  • RapidSOS raised $75 million in a venture round. It developed an emergency response platform that provides first responders with real-time health and location data from connected devices, apps and sensors. It supports 5,200 Emergency Communications Centers, protecting 95%+ of people in the US, across 150 million emergencies annually. Night Dragon Security led 11 other investors. Funding to date is over $280 million.
  • HealthJoy, a digital employee benefits platform for healthcare, raised $60 million in Series D funding from nine investors led by Valspring Capital. Their app bundles telemedicine, wellness, dental, advocacy, medical bill review, EAP, prescription savings, behavioral health, price transparency, MSK, chronic care, mental health, and others. FierceHealthcare
  • Pediatric telehealth provider Hazel Health closed a Series C1 of $51.5 million led by Bain Capital. Hazel partners with school districts to offer virtual care clinics inside the school nurse’s office. It claims to be the only company in school-based telehealth.
  • Others: Navina (AI, $22 million), Galen Robotics ($15 million), Midi Health (menopause virtual clinic, $14 million), and Lumata Health (virtual practice management for ophthalmology, $4 million seed)  Mobihealthnews

Also:

  • Valera Health raised $44.5 million in a growth equity financing round led by Heritage Group. Additional participants are Horizon Healthcare Services and Cigna Ventures, joined by seven previous investors. Total funding is over $71 million. Valera is a specialized virtual mental health platform for high-acuity patients with serious mental illness and severe depression with live health coaches to find a therapist or doctor, and creates a team with multiple clinicians. Their services can be used by adults (18+) and children, adolescents, and teens (6-18)  Mobihealthnews

News and deal roundup: Signify Health’s $564M IPO, RapidSOS’ $85M Series C, Poland’s Telemedico raise, Livongo’s Zane Burke to Bardavon

February 13, 2021 | by

The Big Deal of the Week is Signify Health‘s IPO which on 11 February raised $564 million on a sale of 23.5 million shares on the NYSE. Signify provides comprehensive care and management services such as complex care management, SDOH, episodes of care/bundled care programs, and specialized medical services in the home, utilizing technology and data analytics. Signify now has a market capitalization of $7.12 bn. FierceHealthcare, MarketWatch, Signify release.

RapidSOS, an emergency response data platform that provides Next Generation 911 and Emergency Services Network services to Emergency Communication Centers, had a Series C raise of $85 million led by Insight Partners and Global Venture Capital. The RapidSOS technology in global use links 350 million connected devices to first responders and 4,800 data centers. They have raised $205.7 million over 14 rounds since 2016. Crunchbase, release

On the other side of the deal continuum, Poland’s Telemedico, a telemedicine provider in multiple European and Middle Eastern countries, raised a modest €5.5 million (~$6.6 million) in a Series A round. The round is led by Flashpoint Venture Capital, Uniqa Ventures, PKO VC, Black Pearls VC, and Adamed. Mobihealthnews, TechCrunch

And in a coda to the Telavongo story (Teladoc and Livongo), former CEO Zane Burke joined as a director of workers compensation digital health company Bardavon Health Innovations. Mr. Burke led the $18.5 billion merger with Teladoc in his two years as CEO, after 20 years at Cerner. Becker’s Health IT, release (DigitalJournal)