Medfusion Plus

Medfusion, a patient portal company that was acquired by Intuit and then bought back again by its original owner, has raised $3 million and launched a new suite of products. The funding came from two Durham, North Carolina-based venture firms: Bull City Venture Partners and Hatteras Venture Partners.

"We welcome the financial strength and business association with Bull City Venture Partners and Hatteras Venture Partners," Steve Malik, Medfusion Founder and Executive Chairman of Medfusion, said in a statement. "Both firms' experience working at the intersection of the software, healthcare and life sciences industries will help Medfusion accelerate our goal of using technology to make healthcare easier for everyone."

Medfusion's recent product launches bring it beyond the realm of patient portals -- its original business when it was founded in 2000. In July it added Medfusion Pay, a revenue management suite, and Medfusion Plus, the company's first consumer-facing mobile app. The app allows patients to aggregate disparate health records and the health records of family members.

Medfusion has had an interesting couple of years. The company was acquired by Intuit for $91 million in 2011 and re-named Intuit Health, but in August 2013, two years ago, Malik bought it back and, after a transition period, reverted to the original name. The motivation behind the transaction is a little fuzzy, but apparently Intuit was looking to get rid of the property as part of a reorganization and Malik was ready to take another chance on it.

Just about a year later, Medfusion sued Allscripts over a breach of a 2009 contract. According to a piece in the Triangle Business Journal, the suit was related to Allscript's acquisiton of Medfusion competitor Jardogs, which led to Allscripts promoting its new FollowMyHealth portal, obtained in the acquisition, to the detriment of its existing agreement with Medfusion. That case is still pending, although in an amusing twist in April, the Triangle Business Journal reported that the outcome of the case turned in large part on the interpretation of a single comma in the contract.