Participated · Equity · Sep 2021

Prenome is developing a saliva-based genetic test combined with a behavioral app to predict and manage gestational diabetes. The company combines a genetic risk score with a social-determinants risk score (factors like prior trauma, disposable income, and proximity to grocery stores) and claims roughly 90% prediction accuracy versus an 80% baseline. Co-founders Stevie Cline and Sarah Brozio launched the startup to provide less invasive, actionable women’s health insights and have begun recruiting patients for their OneInSeven clinical study. Prenome has filed patents on its test and methodology and plans to publish research from the OneInSeven study. The startup is working to obtain CLIA certification to allow physician-ordered testing and ultimately intends to pursue FDA approval to enable direct-to-consumer availability. To date the company has attracted $1 million worth of investor interest from several named backers.

Participated · Equity · Jul 2020

Roundtrip operates an online and mobile digital transportation marketplace that connects care coordinators, social workers, nurses and other transport requestors with non-emergency medical transportation providers. Its platform supports all levels of transport — medical cars, wheelchair vans, stretcher vehicles, ALS/BLS ambulances — across all payers and delivers trips when and where needed. Founded in 2016 and led by CEO and founder Mark Switaj, the company has built partnerships in over 40 states and is used across the healthcare landscape. Clients include health systems such as Lifespan Health and the National Institutes of Health, and payers including Community Health Plan of Washington and Contra Costa Health Plan. Roundtrip completed a $4M strategic funding round that brought total financing to date to $10.5M. The company plans to use the proceeds to geographically scale and specialize its sales, implementation and account-management model, expand its health-plan portfolio and technology integrations, and grow the Roundtrip Community marketplace. Roundtrip provides patient ride-ordering software that makes available a community of ride providers who complete non-emergency medical transports for healthcare personnel such as care coordinators, social workers and nurses. Its platform supports all levels of transport, including Lyft, facility-owned vehicles, volunteer drivers, medical cars, wheelchair vans, stretcher vehicles and ALS/BLS/SCT, and works with all payors. The company has built partnerships spanning over 20 states and operates from Philadelphia, PA and Richmond, VA. Founded in 2016, Roundtrip employs 26 people and is actively recruiting to support growth. The company intends to use its recent funding to enhance software capabilities and to attract sales, engineering and account management talent. Management plans to more than double the team as part of its growth strategy. RoundTrip operates a technology platform that connects patients to a slate of medical-transportation providers, including ambulances and specialty wheelchair-accessible vehicles, and handles billing for multiple payers within the same system. The company currently offers services in 15 states across the Northeast and plans to expand that footprint, with the CEO projecting a possible doubling of states over the next one to two years. RoundTrip employs the equivalent of 19 full-time staff at its WeWork Northern Liberties location and aims to grow that to 24 within three months; the recent capital raise is earmarked for expanding sales, marketing and engineering teams. Product development priorities include building additional features such as pharmacy stops after doctor appointments to create more patient value. The platform is positioned to integrate different vehicle types and payer sources to simplify recurring medical-transport needs, such as frequent chemotherapy trips. The company was founded to address transportation barriers that impede patient care, and management said the new funding will support both geographic expansion and technology build-out.

Participated · Equity · Mar 2020

miDiagnostics develops silicon chip–based qPCR diagnostics that deliver miniaturized, rapid, lab-quality tests directly to patients and clinicians. Its platform integrates a nanofluidic processor on a chip with a compact reader to measure a wide array of biomarkers from minimally invasive samples. The company intends to use the funds to accelerate development of a sterility test for batch release and related quality‑control tests for the BioPharma industry using its proprietary qPCR technology. miDiagnostics raised €30M in a Series D round led by Thermo Fisher Scientific, with participation from Alychlo, VMF Invest and Pamica. Founded in 2015, the company emerged from imec’s R&D hub in collaboration with Johns Hopkins University. miDiagnostics is led by CEO Katleen Verleysen and is based in Leuven, Belgium. miDiagnostics develops a next-generation diagnostic platform based on a silicon nanofluidic processor for point-of-care testing. The platform aims to miniaturise and simplify the diagnostics process to reduce costs and enable rapid, comprehensive health analysis. In response to the coronavirus crisis the company adapted R&D toward an ultrafast PCR test for SARS-CoV-2 intended to deliver PCR accuracy with the speed of rapid antigen tests. Field tests have begun, including trials at Brussels Airport, and the company planned a product launch in spring next year. Financially, miDiagnostics signed a €20M loan agreement with the European Investment Bank supported by the European Commission under the InnovFin Infectious Diseases Finance Facility. The funds will be used to scale up processes, accelerate market launch, and support R&D targeting infectious diseases. miDiagnostics develops an ultra-fast point-of-care PCR test that combines lab-quality PCR accuracy with speeds reported to be about 20 times faster than traditional lab PCR machines. The test uses a PCR testcard read by a compact reader and is built on a nanofluidic silicon‑chip diagnostics platform developed by imec and licensed to miDiagnostics in collaboration with Johns Hopkins University. The company is negotiating its first commercial collaborations, finalizing supplier agreements to scale production, and plans pilot programs shortly after summer. miDiagnostics is also discussing commercialization of a rapid PCR‑based breath test for COVID‑19 recently developed by imec, and it intends to develop a broader portfolio of screening, diagnostic and monitoring tests. The firm accelerated its commercial transition after raising €58 million in additional funding, bringing total capital raised since 2015 to €140 million. Management was reinforced with Katleen Verleysen as CEO and Hans Vanderwegen as COO to lead commercial roll‑out and production scaling. miDiagnostics was spun out of imec and is based in Leuven, Belgium; the company was created in 2015. miDiagnostics is a Leuven-based health tech startup developing a silicon-based nanofluidic processor on a chip paired with a compact reader to run clinical biomarker tests from small samples such as fingerprick blood. CEO Nicolas Vergauwe says the company aims to make "diagnostic information as readily accessible as digital information on a smartphone." The proprietary platform, invented by imec and Johns Hopkins University, claims it can measure virtually any biomarker from easily acquired samples. Target use cases highlighted include home monitoring of chronic patients, fast screening for physicians or remote health centers in developing countries, and widespread monitoring during pandemics. The startup has raised €14 million from existing investors plus Dr. Rudi Pauwels and Dr. Ir. Urbain Vandeurzen to speed development and prepare for industrial-scale manufacturing. The funding is intended to accelerate commercialization of remote clinical testing and scale up chip production.

Participated · Equity · Feb 2018

BurnAlong is a Baltimore-based, employer-focused online health, wellness, and fitness platform co-founded and co-led by Daniel Freedman and Mike Kott. It delivers subscription-based programmatic health and wellness content through video technology and a social motivation platform to employers, insurers, municipalities, non-profits and health systems. Content is provided by a network of more than 1,000 wellness professionals teaching across 45 categories, from cardio, yoga, mindfulness and nutrition to mental health, specialty areas and chronic conditions including cancer, diabetes, Parkinson’s and adaptive workouts for people with disabilities. Clients range from Fortune 500 companies to municipalities, school districts, construction companies, banks, tech companies, insurers and hospitals. The company raised $7M in a funding round led by Triventures. In conjunction with the financing, Triventures Managing Partner Michal Geva will join BurnAlong’s board alongside Pernille Spiers-Lopez and Josh Fidler. BurnAlong is a Pikesville-based streaming video health and wellness platform offering fitness, health and wellness classes and enabling people to work out together in groups. The company partners with employers and institutions who provide platform access to employees and members. A sampling of clients includes McCormick, Brown Advisory, Johns Hopkins and the City of Baltimore. BurnAlong said business is accelerating as remote work and closed fitness centers drive demand. The company plans to hire following the new funding. It raised $4 million in fresh funding and previously raised $1.5 million in 2019. BurnAlong operates a platform that offers streaming health and fitness classes. The company said it will use new funding to support expansion efforts, according to co-CEO Daniel Freedman. BurnAlong raised $1.5 million in fresh funding that includes participation from a new undisclosed investor and existing backers. The company previously raised a total of $2.3 million over two rounds in 2018. Investors in those 2018 rounds included Sid Stolz, Brown Advisory, Machem Capital, Macks Managed Investments, and Baltimore Angels. The article does not disclose operating metrics, valuation, instrument types, or location. BurnAlong offers a streaming platform that lets companies provide employees access to health and fitness classes. The company is expanding its offering following a $1.3 million seed round. Cofounder Daniel Freedman announced the raise. BurnAlong added two new board members with experience scaling companies to support growth, including Pernille Spiers‑Lopez. Spiers‑Lopez is the former global head of HR for IKEA and served as president of IKEA North America, leading expansion from 15 to 38 stores between 2001 and 2009. Cofounder Mike Kott said her experience guiding successful growth and building vibrant cultures will help as the company seeks to expand. BurnAlong is a streaming fitness class platform led by Daniel Freedman and based in Owings Mills, Md. The platform lets people work out online with top instructors from gyms and studios across the country, either on their own or live with friends they invite. BurnAlong currently partners with hundreds of local gyms, studios, and wellness professionals and is available via website and iOS and Android apps. It offers monthly (first month free), annual, and corporate subscription options. The company raised $1M in funding from Baltimore Angels, Brown Advisory, Machem Capital and Johns Hopkins University. BurnAlong intends to use the funds to expand operations and broaden its business reach.

Participated · Seed · May 2017

Sunrise Health provides a moderator-led, anonymous group-chat therapy app with VoIP group calls, where users pick an affliction (depression, grief, PTSD, substance abuse) and join ~12-person support groups after a one-on-one assessment with a therapist moderator. An AI natural-language‑processing system filters abusive messages and escalates emergencies to human moderators, while the platform supports referrals between psychiatrists, case managers and therapists and exposes high-level analytics to institutions. The company is in beta and came out of stealth at TechCrunch Disrupt NY; the app is free for patients and licensed as software-as-a-service to healthcare providers. Sunrise has completed one pilot, has another running with 30 users, and plans five additional pilots; it also holds Letters of Intent from metropolitan governments and healthcare systems. Financially, Sunrise has raised $200,000 in cash and in-kind cloud computing credits and received seed investments and grants to fund pilots and development. The team rebranded from Beacon Health and notes collaborations with Johns Hopkins, Yale and Brown; it may need to change its name due to a similarly named startup announced by an investor and former Path CEO.