Healthcare Goes Remote: 5 Startups Changing the Industry
8 MINUTES
June 6, 2023
Today, the healthcare industry faces many challenges. For example, the US — American Hospital Association predicts a deficit of 124,000 physicians by 2033. Also, approximately 44% of Americans (112M) have difficulty affording qualified medical services. And to top it all off, the lack of hospital beds turned into a real crisis.
That’s why, this time, we want to draw our and your attention to tech businesses that can make a real difference in this field. These startups create solutions for remote patient monitoring, early detection, and disease prevention, making qualified healthcare services more accessible.
We are sure that cutting-edge technologies are the turning point in the future of healthcare. Let’s meet those who’re building this future!
Our review of five healthcare startups that move the industry
1. Viz.ai
Company’s website: https://www.viz.ai/
Co-founder & CEO: Chris Mansi
Co-founder & CTO: David Golan
Lead Investors: CIBC Innovation Banking, Tiger Global Management, Insight Partners,
Scale Venture Partners, Greenoaks, Kleiner Perkins, Innovation Endeavors, DHVC, Pear VC.
Total funding amount: $291.6M
Viz.ai was founded by neurosurgeon Dr. Chris Mansi and machine learning postdoc Dr. David Golan in 2016. They were driven by the idea of avoiding delays and gaps in medical services and processes that can cost people’s lives.
Viz.ai is an AI-driven single platform for time-saving, improving treatment, and the healthcare workflow between patients, clinicians, and treatments. The app detects and then alerts care teams to suspected diseases in their network within minutes. It also provides crucial insights for decision-making at the care point, fine-tunes care pathways, and aids in improving patient outcomes.
In April 2023, Viz.ai raised $100M in Series D funding, led by Tiger Global and Insight Partners. Here is what one of the leading investors comments on his investment.
John Curtius, Partner at Tiger Global:
“Viz.ai is the stand out AI healthcare company; they are first-in-class in intelligent care coordination, with a solid foundation of clinical evidence supporting the value delivered to healthcare providers and patients.”
“We see meaningful upside as the company expands to help life science companies expedite clinical trials and accelerate patient access to new effective treatments.”
What we like the most about it:
Viz reduces the time to treatment which leads to better patient outcomes. For example, it saved 69 mins of treatment in the Piedmont healthcare system in Georgia and improved patient outcomes. Also, Viz minimizes the length of hospital stays — 2,5 fewer days.
2. Freenome
Company’s website: https://www.freenome.com/
Co-founder, Chief Growth Officer: Charles Roberts
Co-founder & CPO: Riley Ennis
CEO: Mike Nolan
Lead Investors: Roche, RA Capital Management, Perceptive Advisors, Bain Capital Life Sciences
Total funding amount: $1.1B
Freenome was founded in San Francisco, California, in 2014. Since then, the company has been working to change the healthcare approach through early cancer detection and intervention.
Freenome uses “next-generation” blood tests to detect different types of cancer. The research is based on the company’s multiomics platform, which merges machine learning and molecular biology to identify cancer-related patterns.
Here is how it works:
1.They take the blood sample.
2.Conduct multiomics analysis by analyzing blood comprehensively for tumor & non-tumor markers.
3.Use machine learning classifiers to detect cancer patterns.
4.You got the results!
In 2023, Freenome acquired similar cancer test-making company Oncimmune for $16M. This partnership will allow the company to expand its expertise in testing many other types of cancer.
Freenome’s CEO, Mike Nolan:
“This merger of expertise and technology fortifies Freenome’s holistic approach to the early detection of multiple cancers and accelerates the timeline to bring our screening tests to the forefront of clinical care.”
What we like the most about it:
We genuinely admire those who fight against such a global-scale problem as cancer. The earlier Freenome’s ML-powered technology detects the disease and, thus, gives patients more time to treat it and save their lives. The researches show that early cancer detection and localization increase a survival rate by up to 90%.
3. Noze
Company’s website: https://www.noze.ca/
Chief Technology Officer and Founder: Ashok Masilamani
CEO: Karim Aly
Product Innovation Manager: Jeremy Cullen
Lead Investors: Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Investissement Quebec, Mistral Venture Partners, TandemLaunch.
Total funding amount: $17.8M
Founded in 2015, a Canadian AI startup Noze is a digital smell detection. It provides early disease diagnostics with the help of AI-powered senses of smell.
Noze’s “digital nose” works in a natural environment outside the laboratories so that you can use it anywhere and anytime. The company’s technology is powered by NASA patents. It can catch and decode our body and breath odors, systematize them into data, and send it to AI analytics.
In March 2023, Noze received a $1M grant from Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to create a breathalyzer — a portable device to detect breath biomarkers of diseases like malaria and tuberculosis.
Karim Aly, CEO at Noze:
“Breath-based diagnostics will be a game-changer for healthcare accessibility, and our ability to launch a portable device and deliver it on a massive, worldwide scale can be a powerful new tool to fight the spread of Malaria and Tuberculosis, in addition to many other diseases.”
What we like the most about it:
We were impressed when we discovered that Noze’s technology could detect airborne markers from people infected with the Coronavirus and Influenza.
Also, with its breathalyzer, Noze is trying to make a change in developing countries by providing them with an accessible tool to identify infectious diseases.
4. Senseonics
Company’s website: https://www.senseonics.com/
President & CEO: Tim Goodnow
VP – Engineering, R&D Abhi Chavan
Lead Investors: Masters Capital Management, PHC Holdings, Roche Finance, New Enterprise Associates
Total funding amount: $455.5M
Founded in 1996, Senseonics call themselves the “creators of the first and only long-term implantable CGM,” where CGM is a continuous glucose monitor. This product, called Eversense, helps people with diabetes manage their disease.
The Eversense CGM system includes the following:
1.The sensor is inserted in the upper arm to monitor glucose levels continuously.
2.The smart transmitter should be worn over the sensor for sending data to the user’s phone.
3.The mobile app updates the glucose data every 5 minutes through graphics.
The PROMISE study by Senseonics shows that the next-generation long-term implantable Eversense CGM system lasts safely and accurately for up to 180 days with a single calibration in about half of the days of system wear. It so much simplifies the management of diabetes.
What we like the most about it:
To date, Senseonics is in the process of the ENHANCE study on evaluating the accuracy and safety of the Eversense system for up to one year. We will see if they can make it up to a 365-day sensor configuration!
Eko
Company’s website: https://www.ekohealth.com/
Co-Founder & CEO: Connor Landgraf
Co-Founder: Jason Bellet
Lead Investors: National Institutes of Health (NIH), Morningside Venture Investments, PROOF, Highland Capital Partners, Questa Capital Management, National Institutes of Health, Artis Ventures (AV), Dreamit Ventures.
Total funding amount: $128.2M
Since 2013, Eko has existed to detect and monitor heart and lung disease with AI-powered technologies.
Eko believes in the future of telehealth and that virtual care assistance can be as authentic as an in-person visit. On their website, they support this though with the following data:
-83% of patients expect to continue using telehealth regularly after the pandemic.
-Up to $250 billion in healthcare spending could be virtualized.
Eko provides AI-powered solutions for virtual physical examinations and care delivery:
1.Virtual physical exams: medical providers can hear and see the patient’s body information anywhere.
2.Unified care team: providing live streaming of the physical examination for everyone on a health team.
3.Fit for any setting: telehealth services can be scaled across inpatient, outpatient, specialist, community, and home care settings.
4.Expertise from anywhere: the complex system of healthcare between participants from anywhere (patient’s home, specialists, rural clinic, etc.)
In 2020, Eko raised $65M in Series C funding led by Highland Capital Partners and Questa Capital. And in 2022, the company got a $30 million extension to the last C round to continue its work.
Rob Toews, principal at Highland Capital Partners:
“The massive market need for telehealth is not going away…Eko is uniquely positioned in this space because their technology addresses crucial clinical needs that other companies cannot satisfy, and Eko’s platform is very easy to deploy and scale. We are excited to partner with Eko in this next phase of their growth.”
What we like the most about it:
During the COVID-19 pandemic, Eko sent its CORE stethoscopes and iPads to the Guthrie nursing home in New York. While the caretakers were using their stethoscopes, the doctors could listen to the sounds of their heartbeat and breathing in real-time, without getting exposed to the potentially deadly disease. That’s a significant impact and an example of adapting to the new world’s challenges.
Wrap-up
We’re genuinely impressed! And what about you? Just imagine all the good these innovative technologies will bring to the world! With all these modern remote monitoring possibilities, it’s still vital to double-check with real professionals, if possible.
At StartupSoft, we’ve built all our business around the idea that remote isn’t the opposite of in-house. That’s why we can cover all your recruitment needs remotely with the feeling of being in the same room.
Here’s why you should build your next healthcare software with us:
- We offer dedicated teams with extensive experience in scaling and building healthcare products;
- We hire in 28 days, while the average market hiring time is 36 days.
- We manage all the boring bureaucratic things like pre-vetting, legal arrangements, etc.
- We hire any kind of professionals: individual talents, pre-assembled teams or assemble a team according to your needs.
Let’s talk?