The Venture Codex

Participated · Series A · May 2024

Ciba Health is a NYC-based digital health company that provides personalized, whole-person care using a root-cause approach to prevent and reverse chronic diseases. Its core offering combines expert care teams with extensive lab testing — onboarding identifies over 300 lab markers versus about 50 in traditional tests — and matches each patient with a provider team that includes 1:1 visits with a health coach, physician and dietician. Patients are given wearable devices such as Fitbits and sleep trackers to monitor conditions and support treatment. The company contracts with employers as a benefit and is also available to individual adults and dependents. Ciba recently launched a Pediatric Metabolic Program for children five and older and has partnered with Instacart Health and joined Solera Health’s network to extend nutrition and employer-focused offerings. The company plans to expand partnerships with third-party administrators, integrate GLP-1 step therapies into employer offerings and PBMs/health plans, and grow its employee headcount; leadership changes include the appointment of Nwamaka Imasogie as CTO and the promotion of Roger Chahine to President, with Dr. Innocent Clement serving as CEO. Ciba Health provides a global digital therapeutics platform focused on addressing and reversing chronic disease conditions through personalized programs. The platform tailors chronic care to address root causes, letting patients choose dedicated multidisciplinary teams of providers across locations, languages, and cultural backgrounds. Ciba supplies internet devices and other tools to close access gaps and leverages predictive analytics, remote patient monitoring, and digital therapeutic devices for real-time data. Its product portfolio includes programs for pre- and type 2 diabetes reversal, advanced primary care, depression & anxiety, and digestive health. The company is preparing an upcoming mobile app launch to expand care delivery and improve its technology stack. Ciba has impacted thousands of patients to date and was named among NY Digital Health 100 winners for 2023.

Participated · Seed · Dec 2023

Binkey offers a proprietary AI platform that performs real-time, item-level adjudication using over a million SKUs of first-party data to help consumers maximize health benefit dollars. The company provides 100% compliant payment processing for FSA/HSA and other benefits and offers automated reimbursements with all major health plans and third-party administrators. Since launching last year, Binkey says market reception has been strong. The company positions itself to enable individuals and families to invest in their health and save on health expenses. Binkey announced plans for additional payment processing capabilities coming in early 2024. The stated mission is to empower millions to save billions on better health.

Participated · Equity · Dec 2022

Voiceitt develops personalized speech-recognition software that trains models to understand non-standard or impaired speech through an iOS mobile app and API integration. The app and API learn a user's specific speech patterns, pronunciation, and non-verbal sounds, producing a working model within minutes and improving with ongoing use. The technology can repeat interpreted words to others or other voice assistants and has deep Alexa integration through collaboration with Amazon's Lab126; Voiceitt joined the 2018 Amazon Alexa Accelerator and is an Amazon Alexa Fund portfolio company. The company says its next-generation technology will support spontaneous speech and expand product offerings to enable people with speech and motor disabilities to perform everyday tasks independently. Voiceitt released a beta of an upgraded AI capable of understanding and translating people with speech disabilities. The decade-old startup has raised about $20 million to date and recently closed a $4.7M funding round while increasing the round target to $10M due to oversubscription. Voiceitt provides an application that translates unintelligible and atypical speech in real time, enabling people with severe speech impairments to communicate by voice. The company works with a network of international partners including healthcare providers, speech and occupational therapists, researchers, and disability organizations across the United States and Europe. Voiceitt is a 25-person software startup headquartered in Ramat Gan, Israel, with offices in the United States. The company participated in the Alexa Accelerator powered by Techstars in Seattle and is an Amazon Alexa Fund portfolio company. Its leadership includes CEO and co-founder Danny Weissberg and EVP and co-founder Sara A. Smolley. Financially, the company has raised more than $15M to date following the latest Series A tranche. Voiceitt builds an app that translates nonstandard or impaired speech into normalized audio or text output. Users train the software by composing and reading short, useful sentences so the system learns their particular pronunciation; caregivers can type phrases when users cannot. The normalized output can be played as audio or shown as text for face-to-face communication or to be understood by voice-controlled platforms and devices. The product is in beta now, with an early version planned for release next year, and pilot customers include hospitals and schools serving people with cerebral palsy, Down syndrome, Parkinson’s, traumatic brain injury and stroke recovery. Voiceitt was co-founded by CEO Danny Weissberg and CTO Stas Tiomkin and is a graduate of the DreamIt Health accelerator. Financially, the company has raised $2 million in seed funding from a group of angel and institutional backers. Long term, the team aims to function as an accessibility extension for major platforms such as Google, Amazon, Apple, IBM and Microsoft.

Participated · Series A · May 2022

Mahmee is an integrated care delivery platform for maternal and infant health that provides a subscription-based service offering live support seven days a week, unlimited expert-led support groups and classes, and a unified health record for mom and baby. Since launching in 2016, Mahmee has served over 15,000 pregnant and birthing individuals and its network includes more than 750 practices and community-based organizations. The service pairs expectant mothers with seasoned nurses and care coordinators who proactively screen for health concerns, make referrals to culturally competent professionals, and assist with navigating social services. Mahmee reports patients are 10% less likely to have a C-section and 50% less likely to deliver prematurely, and it maintains partnerships with municipal health departments, hospitals, and insurers including the D.C. Department of Health and Blue Shield of California. The company emphasizes improving outcomes for Black and Indigenous birthing individuals and aims to expand access to comprehensive prenatal and postpartum care for historically underserved communities. Mahmee operates a HIPAA-secure online platform that combines peer group discussions, connections to medical providers, and trained maternity coaches who can flag medical issues. The service offers group and individual video calls (the introductory coach session is free) and subscription tiers starting at $20 up to about $200 per month for unlimited access and monitoring. Mahmee’s dashboard is designed to bridge fragmented postpartum data and enable coordination across practices and health systems. The company charges for engagement and patient monitoring services rather than offering the core community features for free. Mahmee reports more than 1,000 providers in its network. The team plans to expand engineering, clinical, and sales staff and is pursuing partnerships within the healthcare industry.

Participated · Seed · May 2022

SimpliFed offers virtual breastfeeding and baby feeding support and broader maternal health care from pregnancy through the postpartum period via a secure, HIPAA-compliant telehealth platform. The company connects parents with a network of baby feeding experts and maternal health specialists and operates a proprietary Maternal Health operating system designed for collaboration with healthcare partners. Its platform uses interoperable infrastructure and API-driven technology to integrate with health plans, providers, partners and health systems for secure data exchange and streamlined workflows. SimpliFed intends to expand those partnerships and scale use of its Maternal Health OS following its Series A. The company is led by founder and CEO Andrea Ippolito and is based in New York City. The recent Series A raised over $10M to support platform growth and partner activation.