Sempre Health nabs $20M from UPMC, Blue Cross venture arms
Sempre Health, a prescription medication digital health company, raised $20 million.
Investors were UPMC Enterprises, Blue Venture Fund, Echo Health Ventures, Cencora Ventures and Industry Ventures. UPMC Enterprises is the venture capital arm of the Pittsburgh-based UPMC health system. Blue Venture Fund is a venture fund comprised of the 34 Blue Cross Blue Shield companies, the Blue Cross Blue Shield Association and investment firm Sandbox.
Read more: Digital health funding lags: Pitchbook
Sempre works with health plans and life sciences companies to provide discounts on prescriptions for cardiovascular, diabetes, and respiratory medications. The San Francisco-based company said it would use the funds to accelerate growth and launch new products.
Sempre has raised around $45.5 million, including this latest round.
Sonera launches from stealth with $11M seed round
Sonera, a brain health tech company, debuted publicly with $11 million in seed funding.
The seed round was led by Amplify Partners. Other investors were Spark Capital, Material Impact, Boom Capital and angel investor Josh Duyan.
Sonera is developing an application that uses a chip measuring magnetic fields produced by the electrical currents from neural activity. The company said in a release that the technology allows for continuous monitoring of neuromuscular conditions, disease biomarker discovery and sports performance tracking.
Sonera said it will use the funding to make its neural data accessible for a range of applications.
The round brings the company’s total funding to $20 million. It received $9 million in funding before it had debuted publicly.
Digital health companies are increasingly using artificial intelligence, connected sensors and non-invasive and invasive devices to capture data on the brain and offer patient-specific treatments. Optimism persists that the emerging technology can change the paradigm for neurologists. Neuralink, a neurotechnology company founded by Elon Musk raised $280 million in a Series D funding round in August.
Samsung Next, Andreessen Horowitz invest in age tech
Bold, an age health company focused on Medicare Advantage patients, closed a $17 million Series A funding round.
Investors in this round were Rethink Impact, Khosla Ventures, Andreessen Horowitz, Samsung Next, GingerBread Capital and Primetime Partners. The round brings the company’s total funding to $27 million.
Bold has developed a platform that provides virtual exercises to Medicare Advantage members with the goal of preventing falls and reducing musculoskeletal pain. The company works with Medicare Advantage plans and provider groups.
Bold said it will use the funds to expand its platform offerings and add additional Medicare plans.
Healthcare AI company nabs $3.2M from Sequoia
Co:Helm, a generative AI startup focused on healthcare administration, raised $3.2 million in seed funding.
Sequoia Arc, the venture capital firm’s pre-seed and seed catalyst arm, was the lead investor in this round.
Co:Helm's first AI application is aimed at prior authorization workflows. It plans to use the funding to scale its engineering workforce.
The funding round is the latest example of investor interest in healthcare generative AI. Generative AI-focused companies raised $250 million in the second quarter of 2023, according to Pitchbook.
