HealthTap raises $2.35M for health network

The company gets some big names behind it, including Mohr Davidow, Esther Dyson, and more

Personalized health startup HealthTap on Wednesday announced the close of a $2.35 million round of seed funding led by Mohr Davidow Ventures, with help from several other big-name angel investors, including chairman of EDventure Esther Dyson, founder and managing director of Leslie Ventures Mark Leslie, founder of Mint.com Aaron Patzer, and more. 

The company is currently in private beta, but bills itself as a personalized, interactive health solution--or an alternative to everyone's current dependence on Google for answers to all of their health needs. Everyone at some point or another has googled their symptoms to find out if they have some weird disease they heard about on the Dr. Oz show. That's how my sister found out she was pregnant.

But at a time when 50.7 million Americans don't have health insurance, it's little wonder that Google has become the default medical resource for most people. But this method of Google-diagnosis offers little personal context.

"Today when people are looking for health information, what they find is generic information organized around conditions," Ron Gutman, founder and CEO of HealthTap, told me over the phone.

“HealthTap is helping define the new field of ‘interactive health’ – the sector that is moving consumer health information to new platforms, like smartphones and tablets, to provide portability and immediate access to actionable information,” said Bill Ericson, general partner at Mohr Davidow Ventures, in a prepared statement. “HealthTap is integrating personalization, game dynamics, and social networking to increase our engagement with our health and well-being. Consumers and physicians are increasingly joining the online conversation, and interactive health deserves the close attention of the investment community. HealthTap demonstrates the potential of this emerging space.”

HealthTap plans to use the new funds to enhance its central product and expand its network of doctors and patients. Currently, the network is accepting pregnant women and new mothers for its beta testing.

Image source: HealthTap.com