Techcyte raised $21 million in funding for its digital clinical pathology platform. Zoetis, an animal healthcare company and drugmaker, and ARUP Laboratories participated in this round of funding, plus investors from previous rounds.
“Our relationship with Zoetis has been incredible as we’ve revolutionized diagnostics for veterinary clinics,” Ben Cahoon, CEO of Techcyte, said in a statement. “That success has led to a robust digital diagnostics platform that is being leveraged by human hospitals and reference labs to expand and improve their digital clinical pathology platform.”
The company said capital from this round and revenue from its veterinary business will let Techcyte expand its vet segment and speed up commercialization in the human pathology market.
“As the digital pathology market matures, it is becoming clear that human labs have opportunities to enhance both clinical and anatomic pathology workflow through the use of specialized technologies,” Rick Smith, president of Techcyte, said in a statement. “The Techcyte platform is robust and provides solutions for hematology, cervical cytology, FNAs [Fine Needle Aspiration], bacteriology and parasitology.”
Autism teletherapy company Opya scooped up $15.4 million in Series A funding.
Panoramic Ventures, SB Opportunity Fund, Disability Opportunity Fund and Raven One Ventures participated in this round. Prior investors Divergent Investments and Altitude Ventures also contributed.
Opya said it plans to use the funding to scale clinical care, expand its leadership team and speed up product innovations and improvements.
“Our mission is simple: We want to help as many children with autism as possible,” Opya CEO Alden Romney said in a statement. “We’re proud to partner with this distinguished list of investors as we move forward into our next phase of growth. Opya is a mission-driven company with a unique tech-enabled model that is changing the trajectory for children diagnosed with autism.”
Other players in the digital autism care space include Cognoa, which recently received FDA De Novo classification for its autism spectrum disorder software diagnostic aid, Springtide, Magellan Health and Sprout.
Spanish-language digital health platform MiSalud raised $5 million and will launch a beta version of its platform publicly later this year.
Pivotal Ventures, a Melinda French Gates company, and Magnify Ventures led the round. Lowercase Capital, Rise Capital, Entravision and angel investors Alex Bitoun, Sumit Agarwal, Belsasar Lepe and Isaac Saldana also contributed.
The platform will provide personalized preventative health services, along with care from Spanish-speaking physicians.
“There are hundreds of digital health services in English, and some of these services have even been translated to Spanish. But most of that technology is built with an English-language bias,” Wendy Johansson, cofounder and chief product officer, said in a statement. “We are creating a system that is culturally relevant, and thus inclusive.”
DocSpace, a digital health platform that helps healthcare providers more easily start up in private practice, announced $1.2 million in seed funding.
The round was led by Slauson & Co and included Precursor Ventures, Acrew Capital’s Scout Fund, SputnikATX Ventures and angel investors Nathan and Sonia Baschez, Nikhil Krishnan and Eliana Murillo.
The company will use the money to build out DocSpace Pay, a payment platform for patients and clinicians.
Fewer physicians are choosing to work in private practice. According to an analysis by the American Medical Association, the majority of patient care doctors worked outside of physician-owned practices last year. It’s the first year the percentage of physicians working in private practice fell below 50% since the AMA started its survey in 2012.
“Existing practice management software requires clinicians to manually self-navigate the expensive and complicated business formation process before they’re able to utilize any of their product services,” cofounder and CEO Dr. Mario Amaro said in a statement.
“When you require clinicians to do all the hard work of starting a new business, then force them to purchase expensive software, it’s no surprise that fewer clinicians have the opportunity to build new businesses in their communities.”