Shouldn’t a reputation management have a firm hanlde on preserving its own reputation? On that front, things are not looking good for Hartwick Health, a healthcare reputation management startup based in Greensboro, North Carolina.
On Monday, MedCity News reported that Hartwick had raised a $14.75 million Series D round of venture capital. In providing the news, Hartwick Cofounder, Chairman and CEO Daniel Miller named three VC firms: Paladin Capital Group, which supposedly led the round, as well as Revolution Ventures and QED Investors.
However, that evening, QED Ventures emailed to say that company had never invested in Hartwick Health. “No one here at QED recalls ever speaking to anyone at Hartwick — no one has heard of them,” Thomas King, a QED associate, wrote to MedCity News.
Tuesday morning, a Paladin representative sent a similar note. “Paladin has never had any contact with the Hartwick Health and has NOT led or made any investment in that company,” Associate Tom Clute wrote (emphasis in original).
A representative of Revolution Ventures also said that that firm had not invested in Hartwick Health.
When asked about the discrepancy, Miller told MedCity News by phone that he was premature in reaching out to the press, before investors had given him the go-ahead to do so.
A Deep-dive Into Specialty Pharma
A specialty drug is a class of prescription medications used to treat complex, chronic or rare medical conditions. Although this classification was originally intended to define the treatment of rare, also termed “orphan” diseases, affecting fewer than 200,000 people in the US, more recently, specialty drugs have emerged as the cornerstone of treatment for chronic and complex diseases such as cancer, autoimmune conditions, diabetes, hepatitis C, and HIV/AIDS.
He also said that QED had backed out of the deal, despite Alexandria, Virginia-based QED’s claim that nobody there was even familiar with Hartwick.
Miller had said that Hartwick Health has now raised $28 million in venture capital since its inception, though we were unable to locate any announcements about previous funding rounds.
Furthermore, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has no record of any Hartwick Health or Hartwick Health LLC — the official name of the company — in its EDGAR database. The only reference Crunchbase has to any funding for Hartwick Health cites Monday’ MedCity News story and no other sources.
Photo: Flickr user Daveblog
