Big Wellvana round leads recent digital health financings
The latest crop of financings in the digital health category includes a sizeable $84 million round for Wellvana Health, with Genialis, ThoughtFull, and Mindset Health also getting a top-up in cash.
Nashville, Tennessee-based Wellvana offers healthcare clients data analytics tools and population health software that is designed to help physicians and healthcare systems provide value-based care to patients, reducing costs – for example, by reducing hospitalisation rates – and improving outcomes.
The new round, co-led by Heritage Group and Valtruis, and supported by Memorial Hermann Health System, takes the total raised by the company to $140 million and will be used by the four-year-old start-up for continued growth in existing markets and entry into new US territories. Wellvana is currently working with physicians, home-health agencies, skilled nursing facilities, and health systems in 22 states.
Computational precision medicine company Genialis – based in the US and Slovenia – has raised $13 million in a first round that will support its development of patient classifiers based on machine learning and high-throughput omics data to decipher the underlying biology of diseases, predict how patients will likely respond to targeted therapies, and help drug developers design clinical trials.
The financing was co-led by Taiwania Capital and Debiopharm Innovation Fund – the investment arm of Swiss drugmaker Debiopharm – with participation from prior investors First Star Ventures, Redalpine Venture Partners, and Pikas, as well as new backers including P5 Health Ventures.
Australian start-up Mindset Health – described as a digital hypnotherapy specialist – has raised $12 million in an oversubscribed Series A led by King River Capital, with participation from Tatterang’s Tenmile, Yard Ventures, WordPress founder Matt Mullenweg, and others.
The company says it helps people with chronic conditions learn to manage their health via app-based digital audio hypnotherapy, already being used by individuals in the US, Australia, and the UK for indications like smoking cessation, menopause, and irritable bowel syndrome. The cash injection will be used to develop new apps for anxiety and depression, sleep, and chronic pain, and to support further international expansion.
Finally, Singapore digital mental health company ThoughtFull has raised $4 million in seed funding that will be used to expand its presence in Asian markets and add functionality to its main platform ThoughtFullChat. The mobile app provides personalised, self-guided content to support mental health and wellbeing, progress tracking for users, and access to mental health professionals via video calls and text-based coaching, and is targeted at both corporate employers and individuals.
The round was led by Sheares Healthcare Group, backed by returning investors that included Vulpes Investment Management and The Hive Southeast Asia.
