We are so excited to unveil the winner of Health 2.0’s Start-up Stand-up that PAN hosted last week! If you’ve been following our Healthcare Q&A series, you will remember our fireside chat with Michael Batista, CEO & Founder of Quantified Care, whose mission is to make digital health meaningful at the clinical level – connecting patients with the support they need, when they need it. He came out of the gate strong with detailed research on the market need for their solution, data on savings the healthcare system stands to gain and a teaser into a major deal the company just inked with Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts. The competition was stiff, but ultimately, his hard work paid off. Congrats, Michael!

Source: http://blog.topicalsearch.com used under CC license.

What’s next for Quantified Care? Funding and expansion of their sales and marketing team! Hear more from our friend Michael below:

What are you hoping to get out of winning Health 2.0’s Start-up Stand-up? This win comes after a great new deal with BC/BS Massachusetts – do you think this momentum is a sign of good things to come for Quantified Care? (We do!)

First off, thank you to Amy from LumiraDX for organizing and running the event, PAN Communications for hosting the event, and all the judges for taking time to attend and provide feedback to all the startups involved. For us, winning Health 2.0’s Start-up Stand-up event validates that QC has hit upon a real need and a real opportunity in healthcare. We hope winning this event helps us expand our visibility within Boston and throughout the digital health industry. While we already have a great local partner in BC/BS Massachusetts, we would love to see this success translate into additional opportunities to work with more organizations in Boston as we grow and expand our business.

There was a great turn out for the event: did you walk away with any new ideas based on the other participant’s presentations or networking with the judges and guests?

It was excellent to engage with attendees and judges at the event who brought a wide range of interests and experiences to the conversation, all linked through the common theme of healthcare. While QC currently focuses on payers offering Medicare Advantage plans, we received a couple suggestions to look into self-insured employers where we can provide value directly to companies supporting the health of their employees with chronic health issues. Outside of health insurance, we had a chance to speak with attendees about the application of our platform to other verticals such as drug trials, telemedicine and home care. In the provider space, I actually got a short lesson on bundled payments which closely mimic the capitated payment structure CMS has with private insurers. The same incentives that have opened the doors for QC into private insurers may therefore also apply to healthcare systems using the bundled payment model.

You mentioned wanting to find new investors for your latest seed round. What kind of investor are you looking for? How do you plan to use this funding?

QC is currently near the end of a $1.25M seed round of investment. The kind of investors we are looking for at this point would be angel, early-stage and pre-Series A investors looking to make $50k-$100k checks that would help to close this round. More specifically, engaging with investors who bring a background in healthcare, an investment portfolio of healthcare companies and/or experiences selling into healthcare enterprise would be our priority. This investment would be put to work achieving QC’s top priority of realizing successful deployments with existing accounts where we will accrue valuable outcomes and ROI data as well as grow sales and marketing to secure 3-4 additional enterprise clients in 2017. Beyond this round, we are also interested in proactively engaging with Series A investors looking to make $1M-$5M checks, again with a preference for those bringing a background in healthcare. QC plans to raise a Series A round in late 2017/early 2018.

How difficult has it been to raise funding in this growing and noisy market?

No one can deny there is a lot of activity right now in digital health and not all of the news is positive. This industry has been around for a few years now, and people are beginning to demand results. While fundraising in that kind of environment is tough and the need for clear differentiation is vital, we have been fortunate at QC to be able to leverage our team, technology, and track record as evidence of our ability to achieve success. Letting the evidence speak for itself, one of the very first opportunities we pursued involved over 50+ companies vying for an LOI from an enterprise business. QC was one of three companies to receive an LOI after multiple rounds of review and was able to subsequently convert that LOI into a contract that we are still working on today. That is the kind of outcome that gives QC’s investors confidence in our potential for success.

During your presentation you mentioned wanting to build out the company’s sales and marketing team. What types of candidates are you looking for, and how do you plan to market the product?

You are right, sales and marketing are both areas where we are looking to grow QC today. As you can imagine, selling into enterprise is a time-consuming process where it is less about your public marketing and more about how you market your company and product in key meetings with stakeholders. That said, a few months back we brought on a Chief Marketing Officer who has begun to define a structured marketing approach that helps QC get to decision makers through activities such as participating in digital health events like Health 2.0, exhibiting at conferences, hosting webinars and driving awareness through social media. Look out for more of this from QC in the coming months!

In terms of personnel, we are specifically looking for a full or part-time sales leads who can take charge of QC’s existing pipeline while identifying new opportunities. Our ideal candidate would bring healthcare sales experience, especially selling to payers, as well as their own ideas on how QC’s platform might be sold into other healthcare verticals like those we heard from Health 2.0 attendees. We are looking for candidates who will not just bring a rolodex of names, but who will also be involved in helping the business create and execute on an aggressive, targeted sales strategy. Our goal is to fill one or more of these positions before the end of October. Please email info@quantifiedcare.com if you or someone you know would be an excellent candidate for this role.

Just for fun: where do you plan to keep your Health 2.0 trophy?

The Health 2.0 trophy is sitting proudly in the window of our office at Fast Forward East in Baltimore, MD! Stop by to see it and meet the team if you’re interested in learning more! If you’re not in the Baltimore area but would still like to get in touch, reach out by emailing us at info@quantifiedcare.com.