Cohealo reported raising $9 million in a Series A round led by Romulus Capital and Krillion Ventures for the software it’s developing to help hospitals manage their shared medical device inventory.
Cohealo is developing a system to help hospitals share expensive medical equipment as a way to cut costs, likening the platform to consumer applications like Airbnb, Uber and Zipcar. Proceeds from the Series A round, which included equity and convertible notes, is slated for hiring engineers, sales executives and support staff, according to a press release.
Boston-based Cohealo had registered to raise $5.8 million, according to an SEC filing. CEO and co-founder Mark Slaughter, a former Fortec Medical sales executive, did not respond to a request for an interview.
"Since day one, we have seen an enormous amount of interest in our services. In addition to our work with current clients, whose footprints include hundreds of hospitals across dozens of states, we are in talks with many of the largest multi-state health systems in the US for late 2014 / early 2015 deployment. We are on track to dramatically grow the business over the next six months with the most respected and trusted names in healthcare" Slaughter said in prepared remarks Oct. 1. "With the additional vote of confidence and connectivity from our investors, we are poised to continue transforming hospital workflow across the country."
"As health systems are being challenged to introduce more efficiency in every area of their business and control capital expenses without compromising on care, facilitating meaningful ROI is essential," added Krillion managing partner Melissa Krinzman. "We believe that asset utilization is an area of cost savings historically overlooked by hospital administrators, when compared to labor costs and drug spend."
Cohealo – the name is a mashup of collaborative healthcare logistics – says its system can help hospitals cut costs via an "asset lite" model in which hospitals share expensive equipment by transporting it between locations as needed, along the lines of the model pioneered by Zipcar.
"We bring the collaborative consumption model seen in many consumer services like AirBnB, Uber, etc. to the enterprise healthcare space," Slaughter told the website Collaborative Consumption in an interview last month. "Our goal is to create a platform that can bring the best technology to as many points of care that is mathematically and logistically possible. Our long term goal is to coordinate the technology used at every point of care on the planet."
