Encino, California-based healthcare messaging service mPulse Mobile has raised $11 million in a Series B funding round led by SJF Ventures, mPulse Mobile announced today at HLTH: The Future of Healthcare Conference. Other participants included previous investors HLM Venture Partners, EchoHealth Ventures, OCA Ventures, and Bonfire Ventures.
Included in the announcement was news that the company is also launching its Activation Intelligence product, an AI-driven chat designed to engage patients in personalized care.
“mPulse Mobile stood out as a company that is driving a new era of personalized, conversational engagement leveraging AI and the convenience of text messaging,” SJF Ventures Managing Director Cody Nystrom, who will be joining the mPulse Mobile Board, said in a statement. “mPulse has proven impressive engagement outcomes across a variety of use cases and it is just scratching the surface on the market opportunity for health plans, providers, health supply, and pharmacy organizations to further engage and activate their consumers.”
The funding announced today brings mPulse Mobile’s total backing to more than $25 million, and according to the company will go toward developing new tech and continuing to build up the company’s presence in the market.
"The funding will be used to continue to build out our AI capabilities, including our team of behavioral scientists, computational linguists and machine learning experts to strengthen our conversational engagement solutions,” mPulse Mobile CEO Chris Nicholson explained to MobiHealthNews in an email. “We are also looking at strategic acquisitions to accelerate growth based on the increased demand for personalized engagement in healthcare.
mPulse has created a secure messaging offering designed for healthcare organizations including payers, pharmacies, providers, and public and private exchanges, as well as employee wellness. Their product is tailored specifically for the different healthcare organizations that use it — payers, for instance, can use it to offer members secure mobile push notifications, Medicare enrollment support, and caregiver communications.
The AI-based Activation Intelligence draws on demographic, psychographic, and other patient-generated data to deliver personalized mobile messaging structured as chat conversations, with the ultimate goal of driving healthy behavior changes in patients or members. The company notes that the technology is currently being used in an ongoing study of more than 8,000 participants, focused on diabetes self-management. Results from this study are to be published later this year, according to a statement.
“With our broad and growing client base, our innovative mobile solutions that truly deliver personalized health engagement, and this new funding, we are well positioned for continued market leadership,” Nicholson said in a statement.
mPulse Mobile also announced that it has recently added 26 new clients and partners, which include Cambia Health Solutions, Magellan Health, CityMD, and others.
