Cambridge, Massachusetts-based CareDash, an online doctor review portal, has secured $2 million in financing led by Link Ventures. The funding comes in the form of $1 million in venture debt financing and $1 million in credit, which CareDash will use to promote their brand. Previously, the company raised $500,000 in seed funding.
CareDash launched its platform in June 2016 and features over 30,000 reviews and ratings for primary care physicians, dentists, pediatricians and specialists. Users can search by location, ratings and gender of physician, and the site also features informational content on personal health, nutrition, and insurance as well as some everyday legal and financial guidance.
"We started CareDash with the mission to arm patients with the transparent information they need to take charge of their healthcare,” said CareDash Founder and CEO Ted Chan said in a statement. “It’s one thing to eat a bad meal at a restaurant because a review was suppressed in exchange for compensation; it’s quite another to manipulate the healthcare information available to patients.”
Currently, more than 50 percent of CareDash users access it via mobile devices, but the company does not have an app. CareDash said it will use the new funding to build out the mobile platform, and has brought on mobile analytics expert Mira Wilczek – also a Senior Partner at Link Ventures – to direct that strategy.
CareDash prides itself on not accepting payments from doctors to remove or hide negative reviews, as some other review sites may. The company also states that it services more patients in the low-to-middle income range than other sites.
The company generates revenue via advertising, co-registration, SEO and from portfolio inclusion with health information sister sites Wellwithinyou.com and Unsugarize.com, which both launched prior to CareDash. Altogether, the company counts $6.7 million in revenue for 2016. It has attracted investments from Jeff Parker, former chairman and CEO of Thomson Financial, former chairman of McGraw-Hill Publishing Ron Schlosser, and Food Network founder Joe Langhan.
David Blundin, managing partner at Link Ventures, was named CareDash’s Chairman of the Board. Blundin has a history of investing in companies with review and transparency missions: he was one of the earliest investors in Trip Advisor and a lead investor in EverQuote, CarGurus and AutoIntegrity. As Chairman, he is expected to guide CareDash through a similar structure of serving consumers and creating a community via user-generated content.
“Ted and his team at CareDash have achieved impressive growth,” Blundin said in a statement. “We see tremendous potential in the CareDash model of harnassing the power of consumer-generated content to solve a real need for authentic information in the healthcare space. We look forward to this continued partnership.
