Hello Heart snagged $45 million in fresh capital to build out its technology that helps people manage their heart health at home using their smartphone.
The series C round was led by IVP. Other current investors—Khosla Ventures, BlueRun Ventures, Maven Ventures and Resolute Ventures—also participated in the most recent round of funding.
“Hypertension is the most prevalent chronic condition in America, impacting roughly half the U.S. population,” Parsa Saljoughian, partner at IVP, said in a press release.
Hello Heart plans to use the fresh capital to continue growing the team and expanding the product offering to additional clinical heart health offerings.
Launched in 2013, the digital therapeutic company's app helps patients manage their blood pressure, pulse, medications and physical activity using artificial intelligence. Users can track their health information from a smartphone and then receive feedback and suggestions of health improvements via the phone. In addition, the company's AI technology can detect more serious cardiac events such as irregular heartbeat or a hypertensive crisis.
Tools include a digital blood pressure cuff that connects to an app, which tracks readings, weight and physical activity and offers medication reminders.
The idea behind the technology is that a user can get personalized healthcare suggestions without having to talk to a live person.
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“Users were incredibly thankful for the hypertension crisis flow and irregular heartbeat alerts that we added this year,” Hello Heart’s CEO Maayan Cohen told Fierce Healthcare. “Many of our users were able to be notified in time that they might be at risk, allowing them to call 911 directly from the app or share the numbers with their doctor for an immediate diagnosis. Knowing when you need to reach out to get help can save lives.”
In the past year, Hello Heart's business has tripled, with some programs now being offered as part of employee benefit plans. The program has also been added to CVS Health’s Point Solutions Management platform.
Hello Heart’s healthcare technology became even more critical during COVID-19, company executives say.
“Hello Heart is essential during the pandemic since members are able to share accurate BP readings with any clinician they work with from home—their PCP, cardiologist or telehealth urgent care doctor. That was critical for continuity of care,” Cohen said.
According to a recent peer-reviewed study performed by researchers from the University of California, Los Angeles and Harvard Medical School, 70% of Hello Heart users reduced their blood pressure, and the average decrease of systolic blood pressure was 22 mmHg. These clinical results are more than two times higher than any other results ever documented and published in a peer-reviewed clinical study, according to the company.
“The market for heart disease is large and adoption of digital solutions is accelerating quickly. Hello Heart has an opportunity to become the digital therapeutics leader for all cardiovascular diseases and we’re excited to partner with them on their growth phase,” said Somesh Dash, general partner at IVP and now a member of Hello Heart’s board of directors. IVP is a later-stage partner for companies such as Coinbase, Lyra Health, Slack, Snap, Twitter and UiPath.
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Moving forward, Hello Heart is now expanding from hypertension management to deeper clinical heart health. Cohen sees the importance to the product, as heart health is the No. 1 cause of death in the world.
“We’re adding hyperlipidemia management and ECGs to manage more heart health aspects,” Cohen said. “We are in an exciting growth phase and are scaling our teams to be the digital therapeutics leader for cardiovascular diseases.”
While Cohen agrees that the pandemic put enormous demands on the healthcare industry, she also praises its acceleration of innovation and technology in the healthcare space.
“The adoption of video by nearly all doctors and their patients was astonishing. We had Medicare users enrolled in Hello Heart who surprised even their health plan with their level of adoption and usage. Our oldest user is now 101 years old," she said.
She added, "As a team, Hello Heart had zero disruption in our work as we collaborated virtually for most of the last year.”