Originally published by Mobi Health News on May 2, 2022
Cardiac health management company Hello Heart scooped up $70 million in a Series D funding round led by growth equity firm Stripes.
Other participants include IVP, Resolute and BlueRun Ventures. The round comes nearly a year after the startup announced a $45 million Series C raise.
WHAT IT DOES
Hello Heart's program includes a wireless blood pressure cuff that connects to an app, keeping track of metrics like activity, pulse, blood pressure, weight and blood sugar. The app then provides exercise and nutrition suggestions to improve heart health. It tailors these tips based on how likely they are to open and interact with the alerts.
"As an example, eating omega-3 fatty acids improves heart health and reduces your chances of cardiovascular disease. But that's not something you can tell an everyday person and most people will know what to do with it. So Hello Heart translates that into something like, 'Why don't you try eating salmon instead of steak tonight and see what happens to your blood pressure. This could be helpful for you,'" cofounder and CEO Maayan Cohen told MobiHealthNews.
"And then we just encourage you to have healthier behaviors based on research. But it's in a bite-sized way that that actually helps you do things in your day-to-day. 'Why don't you park your car 10 minutes away from the supermarket and walk for 10 minutes.' And voila, you're walking 20 minutes a day without even noticing it."
WHAT IT'S FOR
Cohen said the heart health startup will use the investment to fuel its growth, noting they've doubled their number of clients over the past couple of months.
"On the product side, we're deepening our AI capabilities. We're broadening the scope beyond blood pressure control to hyperlipidemia management.
"So you'll be able to track your cholesterol factors in Hello Heart and get coaching for cholesterol management, and just going broader into heart health and deeper into heart health in terms of our capabilities," she said.
MARKET SNAPSHOT
Another player in the digital heart health space is One Drop, which initially focused on diabetes management. The company launched its cardiovascular disease prevention product last year, a tool that was born out of a partnership with pharma giant Bayer.
Other multi-condition digital health platforms like DarioHealth and Omada also have hypertension-control programs.
Big tech companies like Apple, with its Watch, and Google, with the Fitbit wearable, have been expanding their heart health-tracking capabilities. Earlier this month, Fitbit landed FDA clearance for its photoplethysmography atrial fibrillation-detection algorithm.