HealthCrowd, a startup headquartered in San Mateo, California, has secured a $7.2 million round of funding to continue to provide its healthcare communications platform. TVC Capital led the round, and Startup Capital Ventures, Healthy Ventures and other investors also took part.
Healthcare organizations can use the company’s solution to keep in touch with their members and patients via text, voice, email and mobile web.
In a recent phone interview, HealthCrowd co-founder and CEO Neng Bing Doh explained that what sets HealthCrowd’s approach apart from other competitors is its platform’s ability to learn from every single interaction. Thus, over time, the tool becomes smarter and can deliver more targeted messages.
“The larger vision is really to enable any kind of healthcare entity to deliver purposeful communications,” Doh said.
The California startup’s main clients are payers, but it also works with specialty pharmacies and vendors across various industry segments. Doh declined to list the names of any specific customers.
TVC Capital makes for a strong investor, she noted, because it understands HealthCrowd’s customers and its role in the larger healthcare ecosystem.
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.
Doh said the company has already “laid a lot of groundwork” and has seen organic growth and increased customer demand. The new $7.2 million in funding will thus be used forward invest and meet the influx of demand. The company wants to “serve every one of [its] customers to the degree they should be served,” she added.
HealthCrowd was founded in 2011 by Doh, an advertising veteran, and Clive Wu, a tech entrepreneur who serves as the company’s chief operating and technology officer.
In 2014, the startup expanded its platform to transmit messages from payers to Medicare and Medicaid patients. The next year, it raised a $2.1 million seed round from Startup Capital Ventures, Herlitz Capital, Healthy Ventures, Band of Angels, 37 Angels and Berkeley Angel Network. The funds were used for product development, as well as to move into new markets and expand the company’s customer base among Medicaid plans.
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