Bethesda’s Mytonomy Inc., a software startup with a patient engagement platform, has raised $25 million in new funding — its biggest round by far to date — as the health tech sector continues to gain momentum through the Covid pandemic.
The software-as-a-service startup has closed on its Series B round, led by New York growth equity firm Level Equity. Existing investors Philips Health Technology Ventures and health systems including Roanoke, Virginia-based Carilion Clinic also participated.
This latest round makes up nearly three-quarters now of Mytonomy's total lifetime funding, at $34 million following $9 million in a Series A financing. And it will go toward ramping up the company's headcount, according to married co-founders Anjali Kataria, CEO, and Vinay Bhargava, president.
On the to-do list: Establish a sales and marketing team, while expanding its professional services and customer success, and U.S.-based enterprise software product development teams. Now with 57 employees in the U.S. and India, Mytonomy is hiring for about 20 new positions including writers, producers and editors for its film studio; additional clinical leadership; and a chief people officer and human resources leader, they said.
Mytonomy’s platform contains videos, audio and written content — from education to appointment information to surveys — to keep patients engaged with their health care. It aims to replace, for instance, printouts or pamphlets often given to patients, instead arming them with interactive modules specific to their procedures or diagnoses.
They target health systems, insurers and employers, and pharmaceutical and med-tech companies, as well as individual patients, as potential clients. And their efforts are timely — the co-founders said providers are increasingly "modernizing their remote patient engagement and communication efforts" as they emerge from Covid.
While the company was already seeing rapid growth before the coronavirus hit, that growing demand for virtual care has accelerated business, they said. The startup saw its revenue double in 2020 to $4 million, and expects the same growth rate for this year, projecting $8 million in revenue in 2021, according to the duo.
Bhargava, a former manager of Google strategic partnerships, founded Mytonomy in 2011 as an ed-tech company with a video platform for high school and college students. Five years later, Kataria came on board as CEO and founded the health care business, which today represents the entirety of the company. She was formerly a Food and Drug Administration senior technology adviser and vice president for product strategy in pharma for Oracle Corp.
The funding, too, comes as patients increasingly look for convenience in their care, a growing trend since telemedicine use surged through the Covid-19 pandemic. The health-tech sector has seen investments soar of late, per a Deloitte industry study.
The D.C. region has already been flush with funding lately, experiencing two record-setting quarters for venture capital. As the pandemic eases up and cash is flowing more freely, more local venture capital firms are raising funds — and it’s rippling to the ventures themselves in larger-than-usual rounds. The growing recipient roster of that capital includes Rockville health-tech company DrFirst Inc., McLean kidney care startup Somatus Inc., Gaithersburg biopharma Sirnaomics Inc. and others.
