January 18, 2008
AdvancedMD Software Sold To PE Firm
Francisco Partners has bought out Salt Lake City-based AdvancedMD Software. Founded in 1999, AdvancedMD sells Web-based medical practice management. No financial terms were disclosed. AdvancedMD had raised around $20M from Domain Associates, Windward Ventures and Hunter Capital Group.
As part of the deal, AdvancedMD's CEO for the past 4 years, Jim Pack, has been replaced by John Trzeciak, who has been with Francisco Partners.
AdvancedMD's revenues have been on a tear. It has been on the Inc. 500 list. Inc. says that AdvancedMD's revenues increased from $1.3M in 2003 to $9.4M in 2006.
View - site
Posted at 09:09 PM | Permalink
January 08, 2008
Goldman Sachs Invests In MD's Blackberry Epocrates
Epocrates has raised an undisclosed amount of funding from Goldman Sachs. Epocrates has done what skeptics have thought is impossible - got doctors to use modern information technology products. More than 500K healthcare professionals including more than one in four US physicians use Epocrates' mobile or web-based products. In addition to selling its handhelds, Epocrates also recruits clinicians to participate in market research studies which are then sold.
It has been a long road for Epocrates which was founded 10 years ago but the company is now very well positioned in a high value sector.
Docs would pay $199 per year for this Epocrates handheld
View - site
Posted at 11:13 AM | TrackBack | Permalink
December 28, 2007
Israel's Lifeonkey Closes $10M To Help You Access Medical Records Via Net/Cell
With 2M subscribers to its service, Israel's LifeOnKey has raised $5M and plans to raise a further $5M in the financing round.
LifeOnKey (fka Global Medical Networks) enables users to access personal health information at any location through the Net or cell phone. The reason the company is called Life On Key is that users can also store their medical records on a disk on their key chain.
LifeOnKey has been available in Israel and they are making a European push.
View - site
Posted at 11:30 AM | TrackBack | Permalink
December 21, 2007
Bosch Buys Health Hero
Germany's Bosch Group has bought VC-backed, Palo Alto-based Health Hero Network for an undisclosed amount. Founded in 1992, Health Hero sells remote monitoring and management of patient health data with a focus on people with chronic disease.
In November 2006, Health Hero raised $16M from Psilos Group and new investors California Technology Ventures, Integral Capital Partners and Boston Scientific. Existing investors Artal Services, Shoreline Venture Partners and ZG Ventures joined in.
View - site
Business Acquisition in the U.S.
Bosch acquires Health Hero Network
Leading innovator of telehealth solutions
- Products in the health monitoring business
- All associates will become members of the Bosch team
STUTTGART, Germany, Dec. 19 /PRNewswire/ -- The Bosch Group has
announced it has acquired a majority share holding in Health Hero Network,
a leading innovator in the remote health monitoring business. An agreement
to this effect has been reached with the company's shareholders. Terms of
the agreement will not be disclosed.
Health Hero Network, headquartered in Palo Alto, California, develops
and sells technology solutions that allow the Heal"With the innovative products of Health
Hero Network, the Bosch Group can help patients with chronic conditions
achieve a better quality of life," said project leader Sascha Henke. Since
it was founded in 1992, Health Hero Network has been issued 63 patents. The
company currently employs 44 associates, all of whom will be retained by
Bosch.
The Bosch Group is a leading global supplier of technology and
services. In the areas of automotive and industrial technology, consumer
goods, and building technology, some 260,000 associates generated sales of
43.7 billion euros in fiscal 2006. The Bosch Group comprises Robert Bosch
GmbH and its roughly 300 subsidiary and regional companies in over 50
countries. This worldwide development, manufacturing, and sales network is
the foundation for further growth. Bosch spends more than three billion
euros each year for research and development, and in 2006 applied for over
3,000 patents worldwide. The company was set up in Stuttgart in 1886 by
Robert Bosch (1861-1942) as "Workshop for Precision Mechanics and
Electrical Engineering."
The special ownership structure of Robert Bosch GmbH guarantees the
entrepreneurial freedom of the Bosch Group, making it possible for the
company to plan over the long term and to undertake significant up-front
investments in the safeguarding of its future. Ninety-two percent of the
share capital of Robert Bosch GmbH is held by Robert Bosch Stiftung GmbH, a
charitable foundation. The majority of voting rights are held by Robert
Bosch Industrietreuhand KG, an industrial trust. The entrepreneurial
ownership functions are carried out by the trust. The remaining shares and
voting rights are held by the Bosch family and by Robert Bosch GmbH.
Posted at 11:45 AM | TrackBack | Permalink
October 15, 2007
eMedical Records' MediKeeper Raises 1st Round
Honolulu, HI-based PacifiCap has invested an undisclosed amount in San Diego's MediKeeper. Founded in 2003, MediKeeper provides Web-based online medical record access. It's been a tough business over the years with politicians claiming year after year that electronic medical records will become mandatory - as you may have noticed it never happens.
Read - announcement
Posted at 01:45 AM | TrackBack | Permalink
September 17, 2007
Hearst Buys eHealth Site RealAge.com
The New York Times reports that Hearst has bought the health web site Real Age and may have paid close to $100M to close the deal (given reporting revenues at Real Age of $20M per year.)
RealAge is a consumer-health media company and provider that provides personalized health information and management tools with the tag line "Live Life to the Youngest®." They have a smart marketing pitch to readers which is to quiz them and then provide them with a quote as to how old they really are "biologically" rather than what the calender says.
RealAge was founded in 1999 and claims 2.1M unique visitors a month. That's great traffic but it just shows what a high price advertisers will pay for health traffic as $20M is a lot of revenue to milk from this level of traffic.
RealAge also operates the sites DogAge and CatAge.
Read - NY Times
Posted at 12:37 AM | TrackBack | Permalink
August 08, 2007
Pre-launch Wired Benefits Raises 1st Round
WiredBenefits has raised $2.5M in Series A-1 funding led by Labrador Ventures, according to PEHub. Labrador says it put in $200K. Wiredbenefits says at launch it plans to connect holders of Flexible Spending Accounts (FSA's), Health Reimbursement Accounts (HRA), and Health Savings Accounts (HSA) with a comprehensive selection system via a proprietary transactional self-service platform.
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Posted at 02:26 PM | TrackBack | Permalink
July 17, 2007
Founded 8 Years Ago, HealthLine Now Gets Big Attention
Health search and media startup Healthline has raised $21M led by The Peacock Equity Fund, a joint venture of GE Commercial Finance and NBC Universal. Just as importantly, the round comes with partnership agreements, including one that makes Healthline the chief source of health information and search for NBC Universal-owned iVillage.
Healthline is yet another startup with a long story. It was founded in 1999 as Yourdoctor.com, and raised $24M but it was not money well spent. Come 2005 Yourdoctor.com relaunched as Healthline and it 2006 it raised another $14M.
Online health has found its groove again but competition is tough. WebMD and MSN Health & Fitness, Yahoo Health, and the new Revolution Health have invested a lot to make sure that health searches come to the them. But NBC should be able to drive enough traffic to Healthline to make this a good idea.
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Posted at 07:07 PM | TrackBack | Permalink
April 24, 2007
eHealth's CarePilot Raises Funding
NYC-based CarePilot.com recently launched its search engine for comparing home health care agencies. We avoid health care providers like the plague, so we have a hard time relating to this. But it does seem like a solid database that now needs distribution through a large health portal.
CarePilot's founder/CEO tells us: "Two of our angels include venture capitalists Bob Greene and Matt Gorin of Contour Venture Partners. We are actively fund raising."
Read - CarePilot is a Local Search for Healthcare Providers (Mashable)
Posted at 06:39 PM | TrackBack | Permalink
April 11, 2007
BioMed Digg: Biowizard Funded
Philadelphia's BioWizard has closed its first round of financing at $675K in Series A from MentorTech Ventures. The company says its going to make the site better and figure out how to drive traffic to it.
Oddly, the company claims "BioWizard is leveraging its more than one million unique visitors a day." Say what? Do you mean per month? Your VCs might have gone for it, but we don't buy this number for a second.
Read - Biowizard closes Series A
Posted at 02:47 PM | TrackBack | Permalink
April 10, 2007
DCM Invests In Pre-name, Stealth Health Portal
DCM has invested in a stealth mode health portal based in Palo Alto that was founded by Steve Fram, who was VP, Engineering at BabyCenter. All they are saying right now is that the venture is going to be even bigger than BabyCenter. They have yet to get cracking on V 1.0 and are just getting their office space (by the PA train station), hiring people and thinking of a good name to call it.
Indeed BabyCenter is an impressive operation. It is now owned by Johnson & Johnson, is the leading Internet property focused on pregnancy and family life and says its web sites are used by more than half of new moms in the US.
Posted at 04:23 PM | TrackBack | Permalink
March 28, 2007
Tattooes For Whoosies Startup - Freedom2Ink - Raises $1.5M
Apparently there is a sizable population of people who want to take part in the tattoo fad but who anticipate that their tats will look gross when they are old. The NYC-based startup Freedom-2 has raised $1.5M in Series A for its inks that are used for permanent but removable tattoos. The financing was led by Brightleaf Capital and a healthcare angel investors. Previous investors Jamestown Investments and the Center for Innovative Ventures at Partners HealthCare participated in this round.
Look like Alan Iverson now. Remove when you want to look like Alan Alda.
If you need a technical explanation for how the process works, here it is: Freedom2Ink uses microscopic bioabsorbable pigments and dyes that are encapsulated in a biocompatible polymer forming a microencapsulated colored bead. The tattoo is "easily" removed by a single, standard laser treatment that breaks the polymer beads allowing the body to naturally expel the dye trapped inside.
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Posted at 03:17 PM | TrackBack | Permalink
February 28, 2007
John Doerr Re-invests In Brother's Biz Purkinje
St. Louis-based Purkinje has raised $10M in Series D funding led by board members John Doerr (partner and Michael Long (former Healtheon CEO). The company lists John Doerr as the principal owner in the company.
Perkinje has 300 employees and says it serves over 5000 physicians. It sells a suite of solutions in the areas of practice management, electronic health records, personal health records, and electronic prescribing and it sells IT services to physicians.
A Purkinje electronic medical record
Visit - site
Posted at 07:54 PM | TrackBack | Permalink
October 11, 2006
Dr. Appointment Services Funded/Headed By Ex MapQuest Chief
A columnist at the Washington Post wrote an article today commenting that there is no Orbitz for health care. Doctors Direct would like to get there and has raised $2.5M in Series A funding led by Spark Capital . Tommy McGloin is the President and CEO of DoctorsDirect.com. Before joining DoctorsDirect.com, he headed MapQuest for 4 years and before that McGloin headed AOL Moviefone.
This one doesn't compute. Users search for docs using a variety of paremeters and can than book an appointment. That's nice but DoctorsDirect takes a booking fee and it won't touch insurance. So if you are uninsured or too rich to care about insurance, Doctor'sDirect is a swell service. It doesn't add up why a seasoned lead like McGloin sees an opportunity here.
Read - Orbitz For Docs? Not Yet (Washington Post)
View - Doctorsdirect.com
Posted at 01:18 AM | TrackBack | Permalink
September 29, 2006
Colonoscopy 2.0's NeoGuides Raises $25M
Los Gatos' NeoGuide Systems has raised $25M in its Series C led by London-based Advent Venture Partners.
Colorectal cancer (CRC) accounts for 14% of all deaths from cancer in the US, making it the second most common cause of cancer death. In 2005, an estimated 145K cases will be diagnosed. If you are over 50, you know that you should be tested at least annually. The gold standard for testing is the colonoscopy. 14.2M colonoscopies were performed in 2002 and most people hated the experience. Neoguide systems claims to have invented a better colonoscopy.
Unlike conventional scopes, the NeoGuide colonoscope is built out of multiple segments that can be actively controlled. As the physician inserts the NeoGuide scope, the system creates a 3D map of the colon and then directs these segments to follow the path taken by the tip.
Here's the unit. Looks spendy.
View - NeoGuides site
Posted at 01:26 PM | TrackBack | Permalink
July 20, 2006
MedSite Sells For $40M, But It Is a Loss For Investors Who Put in $85M
We have seen several M&A transactions recently in eHealth, but unfortunately most of them have been at a loss for the seller.
WebMD's $40M buy-out of Medsite may have been welcome news for management of both companies, but it is a loss nonetheless for Medsite investors who have put in $85M. Medsite's investors include Morgan Stanley Venture Partners, JP Morgan Partners, The Argentum Group, and others.
Medsite is an online pharmaceutical marketing and company. That means pharmacies pay it to promote their products online - it recently announced an editorial partnership with Yahoo! - and to reward physicians for using their drugs. About 60 pharmas work with Medsite and it claims a database of over 400K physician contacts.
A MedSite Online Re-Education Tool For Physicians
View - WebMD Announces Acquisition of Medsite
Posted at 04:12 PM | TrackBack | Permalink
May 30, 2006
eHealth - Not As Healthy As Its Prognosis
"This [eHealth] is the hottest space in the Internet," said West Shell, chairman and CEO of Healthline Networks. We spot some hyperbole going on here. According to an AP report: Roughly $37M has been spread over four companies in the past year." That sounds about right and that would make it one of the coldest Internet sectors for investment.
Healthline Has Raised $14M to Bankroll Mediocre Traffic
Read - It might be time for health care to profit on Net (AP)
Posted at 04:07 PM | TrackBack | Permalink
Docs Who Do House Calls Funded
Seattle's OnSiteDocs has raised $6.25M. The startup is low-tech, even an throw back to Dr. Kildare era. The premise of the start-up is house calls to the work-place. Because it is a "predictable expense" and can help people avoid the emergency room,corporations might be able to save money through proactive visits. CEO is Ralph Derrickson, the former managing director of at Vulcan Capital.
Posted at 03:57 PM | TrackBack | Permalink
May 20, 2006
MDLinx - An Internet Survivor Gets its Payday
Here at the a:c, we're always happy to see our friends succeed. To that at end, we're pleased to report that MDLinx, a seven-year-old site that aggregates medical articles and research from more than 1,200 sources, was acquired yesterday by Tokyo-based So-Net M3 Inc., another online medical info aggregator, which is 60 percent owned by Sony Communication Network. Terms of the deal were not disclosed, but we're sure the sake was flowing at MDLinx HQ in Washington, DC.
MDLinx was formed in the go-go days of the late 90's and, like so many other companies, saw its fortunes flag when the bubble burst. But unlike so many other companies, MDLinx hunkered down and emerged from the wreckage with a small, but profitable -- yes profitable -- business. So here's a big a:c knuckle-bump to MDlinx CEO Dave Rothenberg and co-founder Dr. Evan Garfein.
Original investors included NetStar Ventures LLC, Spacevest, and Alan Meckler (via his company's then active VC arm).
Read: Japanese Company Acquires D.C.'s MDLinx (Washington Post)
Posted at 11:53 AM | TrackBack | Permalink
March 28, 2006
Medical Voice Mail Service Vocada Raises Series B
Vocada does something very simple: it sends voice messages to physicians to inform them of critical test results. As straightforward as that may sound it is a vital check-box when it comes to malpractice and patient care.
Vocada raised its latest round from Murchison Capital Partners and the Bower Foundation of Mississippi.
Posted at 12:40 AM | TrackBack | Permalink
January 20, 2006
Docs Starting To Use Electronic Medical Records
Maybe the worst job we ever had was filing records at a doctor's office back in our teens. Since then, we have had a fascination with electronic medical records. Sadly, doctors' offices are the last places in the world to adopt computers and databases.
Things may be turning the corner as privately-held Cary, NC-based A4 was just sold to Chicago's Allscripts for $272M.
A4 was founded in 1970 but in 1999 an experienced health market IT pro, John McConnell, took over the company. He was founder of Medic and took that company public. In 1999, A4 was said to be worth just $12M and McConnell bought 25% of the company at a stake worth about $65M today.
There Is Nothing Worse Than Paper Medical Records
Posted at 05:35 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack | Permalink
January 18, 2006
WebMD Pays $25M for Competitor eMedicine
Founded in 1997, Omaha, NE-based eMedicine provides physicians with in-depth clinical information and it also has a consumer-facing site. The company was bootrapped by its founders.
This is the second recent buy for WebMD. It paid $19M for The Heart.com in November 2005.
