Globe and Mail: PocketHealth Founders discuss $45M Series B Funding
March 22, 2024
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TORONTO, March 31, 2022 — PocketHealth, the patient-centric medical image sharing platform, today announced that it has raised $16 million USD ($20 million CAD) in Series A funding led by healthcare venture capital firm Questa Capital. Initial venture capital investor Radical Ventures also participated in the round, which brings the total capital raised to date by PocketHealth to $22.5 million USD ($29 million CAD). PocketHealth will use the funding to expand its talent base, build new U.S. and Canada clinical partnerships and continue to invest in product innovation.
Founded by brothers Harsh Nayyar and Rishi Nayyar in 2016, PocketHealth is built on the belief that the most effective way to ensure a health record gets where it needs to go is to give it to the patient. Challenging long-standing medical image sharing norms, PocketHealth liberates patient images from care provider silos, putting diagnostic quality images in the hands of patients whenever and wherever they need them. Patients on PocketHealth can permanently store their historical medical imaging and access them from any device or browser, all protected with bank-level encryption. The integrated PocketHealth platform also helps patients understand their results through its Report Reader functionality, which allows patients to tap or click on anatomical or medical terms common within most medical imaging reports and view term meaning in easily understandable language.
“PocketHealth’s approach shares power and self-agency among care provider and patient, giving patients a new sense of comfort and control in managing their care journeys,” said Ryan Drant, founder and Managing Partner, Questa Capital. “The technical elegance and simplicity of PocketHealth makes it an appealing choice for any forward-looking health system invested in improving care experiences for their patients and their families. We look forward to supporting Rishi, Harsh and PocketHealth team as they rapidly expand their North American footprint.”
“Consumers now have access to real-time information in every area of their lives except the most important area, their healthcare,” said Jordan Jacobs, co-founder and managing partner, Radical Ventures. “We are doubling down on our initial investment because we believe PocketHealth has the product and the team to finally address this important problem and improve outcomes for patients and care providers.”
Imaging is almost always a source or confirmation of medical diagnosis, and can often be the single spark for a long-term care journey. While the emotional nature of a care journey may range from delight (maternity) to anxiety (tumor discovery), to everything in between, many patients who have moved through an image-based journey know the pain of image access and sharing. Today, X-rays, ultrasounds, CT scans, MRIs and other visual assets are essential for understanding a treatment course or for soliciting second opinions. Yet at a time where many may be at their most vulnerable, patients typically find themselves in frustrating records release expeditions, requiring in-person visits, CD-ROM hardware and locked image-sharing networks.
“Knowledge and access are power. At PocketHealth, we believe that frictionless health record access is a patient’s right,” said Rishi Nayyar, Co-Founder & CEO of PocketHealth. “We’re thrilled that Ryan and the team at Questa also embody this belief, and we look forward to ensuring that any patient, anywhere, can own and control the images most essential to advocating and guiding their own health outcomes.”
PocketHealth is trusted by over 600,000 patients and 550 hospitals and outpatient imaging facilities across North America, and will exceed one billion images stored on the platform by the end of 2022. As PocketHealth expands, the company will look to bring its conviction in patient empowerment into more aspects of medical record sharing.
About PocketHealth
PocketHealth is the world’s first patient-centric image sharing platform. With PocketHealth patients can instantly access, share and take ownership over their own medical imaging and records at any time, anywhere, and with anyone. PocketHealth also enables direct sharing between hospitals and physicians, as well as instant DICOM retrieval and automated importing capability, creating a unified image management solution for more than 550 hospitals and imaging clinics across North America. PocketHealth believes that by placing patients at the center of their care journey, records move more ethically, easily and securely throughout the healthcare system. Learn more at www.pockethealth.com.
About Questa Capital
Questa Capital is a venture growth equity firm focusing on investments in expansion-stage healthcare companies. Questa seeks out disruptive, technology-enabled business models that help improve patient lives, streamline market inefficiencies, and provide better quality care. The firm partners with superior management teams to help build innovative market leaders in the healthcare technology, services and medical devices sectors. Questa is led by industry veterans in healthcare investment and operations who have invested in and advised more than 50 growth-stage companies. More information is available at www.questacapital.com.
About Radical Ventures
Radical Ventures is an early-stage venture capital firm investing in people applying artificial intelligence to shape the future of how we live, work and play. From healthcare and financial services to infrastructure and manufacturing, Radical partners with entrepreneurs who understand the transformational power of AI. Learn more at www.radical.vc.
