Houston virtual health care company receives investment from GE for its $13M series B
Money moves
A Houston-based health tech company is wrapping up its series B fundraising round with an investment from Chicago-based GE Healthcare.
The fundraising round is in its initial closing, says Gray Hancock, COO Decisio Health Inc., and is expected to close at $13 million. Decisio has previously raised $7 million, according to Crunchbase. The funds will be used for product development, support, and ongoing growth in operations.
"This investment really cements our partnership with GE Healthcare," Hancock tells InnovationMap in an email. "We signed a global distribution agreement with them earlier this year, so the investment is another step forward in our strategic alignment."
GE Healthcare also invested in Massachusetts-based Formlabs, which makes low-cost 3D printers for anatomical models, and U.K.-based CMR Surgical Ltd., which specializes in surgical robotics.
"Healthcare's next chapter will be written in part by emerging technologies like 3D printing, robotic surgery and virtual patient monitoring," says Kieran Murphy, president and CEO of GE Healthcare, in a news release. "That's why we're putting GE Healthcare's innovative engine and resources behind collaborations with these exciting, next generation companies – to help change the way clinicians work and enable more precise patient care."
Decisio is a virtual care monitoring software that was founded in 2013 based on technology licensed from and developed at the University of Texas Health Science Center in Houston. Using real-time clinical surveillance with data visualization, the DECISIOInsight software can identify risk that helps clinicians make better patient care decisions virtually.
"Our theory was that if you can make the clinicians job's easier, and improve the outcomes for the patients then costs will come down," Hancock says. "But the care of the patient comes first. Do that right and the cost savings will follow. We say its 'where outcomes meet income.'"
In 2015, Decisio Health was approved by the Food and Drug Administration class II medical device, which made it the first FDA-cleared web-native software.
For Decisio, the future of health care is virtual, and the company is determined to design the best technology for clinicians and patients alike.
"Virtual Care is the next step beyond traditional telemedicine, which — for many years — was limited to having a teleconference or even just a phone call with a caregiver," Hancock says. "Now we can start sharing real-time clinical data with clinicians wherever they happen to be located."