Medisafe Raises $6 Million, Relocates Headquarters to the United States
Leading Mobile Health Medication Management Platform to accelerate user adoption in the U.S. market
HAIFA, Israel & BOSTON, MA — January 18, 2015. Medisafe™, the leading global medication management platform with over 1.3 million mobile downloads across iOS and Android smartphones and tablets, announced today that it has raised a $6 million Series A Round led by Pitango Venture Capital. Others participating in the round include 7wire ventures, as well as investors from previous rounds, including lool Ventures, TriVentures and Eyal Gura.
Medisafe’s mobile-first approach involves creating personalized interventions to the major causes of non-adherence – forgetfulness, lack of support, emotional distress, information overload, low engagement, and rising medication costs. Through its platform, the company is enabling tighter care coordination between patients, caregivers or “MedFriends,” physicians, and other providers.
Medisafe will allocate the $6 million in new funding towards accelerating user growth in the U.S. market, where nearly half of Americans are prescribed at least one medication on a daily basis. The company will focus on expanding the suite of medication management solutions available, enhancing overall user experience within its mHealth apps, and accelerating market penetration through a network of distribution, technology and data partnerships.
To support the market expansion, Medisafe has relocated its headquarters to Boston, Massachusetts and hired Jon Michaeli as Executive Vice President of Marketing and Business Development. Mr. Michaeli has extensive digital consumer background and comes to Medisafe from Sermo, where he worked closely with physicians and other healthcare industry constituents for over three and a half years.
“We believe adherence is a critical pillar to improve quality of care on a global scale, and in the near term, we are focusing our efforts in the U.S. given the dynamics and the speed of mobile technology adoption in this healthcare market,” said Medisafe’s CEO, Omri ‘Bob’ Shor. “We are excited to welcome leading investors Pitango and 7wire Ventures, who are true innovators in the field of digital health. This funding will support our growth in the U.S., as we continue to expand our platform, with the mission of bringing value to patients through connectivity to key stakeholders in the healthcare continuum.”
“The convergence of health, internet, mobile, and big-data is creating an explosion in the digital health arena, where innovative digital health and mobile health solutions are expected to create improved health outcomes,” said Ittai Harel, General Partner in Pitango. “Specifically, the area of medication management and adherence remains a huge health and cost burden to patients and to health providers worldwide – estimated to be costing the global economy hundreds of billions of dollars every year. Medisafe has developed and is commercializing a novel, mobile phone based, personalized medication management platform that could effectively address the tremendous problem of non-adherence. Medisafe’s team was able to develop a winning solution that has been very well received. We’re excited to join them and accelerate their success.”
Medisafe has won first place in Health 2.0’s Traction Startup Competition for its leading mHealth solution, has been named 4thmost innovative healthcare company by Fast Company magazine, has won the Digital Health World Cup in Stanford University, and has secured second place (and a prize valued at 2 million Euro) from Seven Ventures (7VPD). 1.3 million people have downloaded the application from Google Play and iTunes App Store, 52,000 of which have rated it 4.5 out of a possible 5 stars.