Withings, has announced a $60 million Series B funding round co-led by healthcare investment specialists Gilde Healthcare, and long-term Withings partners and investors, Idinvest Partners and Bpifrance, through their Large Venture funds, as well as BNP Paribas Développement, ODDO BHF, and Adelie Capital.
The company aims to solidify its position as a trusted intermediary between patients and healthcare professionals. It will continue to invest in products and data services that help deliver more personalised, continuous and preventive medicine.
The company will invest funds to globally scale its business-to-business division Withings MED PRO and accelerate the development of consumer health devices that bring medical grade and predictive capabilities into the home. It also plans to add 100 new positions in the United States and France by the end of the year across research and development, sales, and marketing.
The company has built and ecosystem of connected, non-invasive health devices by using everyday objects and endowing them with new medical powers: a scale that measures arterial stiffness, an analogue watch that detects cardiac arrhythmias, a blood pressure monitor that detects valvular heart diseases, and an under-mattress sleep tracker that detects sleep apnoea. With over 45 technical patents, the Withings portfolio captures more than 20 vital health parameters including blood pressure, ECG, weight, pulse wave velocity, heart rate, activity levels, sleep apnoea, and sleep patterns.
With people spending most of their time outside of the doctor's office, at-home health monitors can give consumers more control over their health, and have potential for doctors, hospitals, and researchers. Having remote and regular access to precise medical-grade data allows professionals to offer more personalised, intelligent, and responsive care.
In 2019, Withings launched MED PRO, a dedicated business-to-business division that allows medical professionals, institutions, payers, disease management programs, coaching platforms, and researchers to leverage Withings devices and data analytics within their own ecosystems. With today’s funding and against the current health emergency backdrop, Withings is actively growing this division.
MED PRO also aids academic and pharma research, having been involved in over 100 clinical and academic studies by leading organizations such as Harvard University, Hôpital Européen Georges Pompidou, the American Medical Group Association, and Scripps Health. It is currently involved in a research initiative with the Department of Cardiology at the university hospital of the Ludwig-Maximilians University of Munich, which is integrating the soon to be launched Withings ScanWatch into a COVID-19 patient monitoring project. ScanWatch is capable of tracking the blood oxygen saturation and the heart rhythm by wrist measurements.
From a small group of engineers, the Withings team has grown in size and scope to include people with diverse and non-conventional electronics backgrounds such as cardiologists, psychologists, a sleep doctor, and even a philosopher.
As Withings deepens its ongoing healthcare strategy, it will be guided by its newly appointed global
Medical Advisory Board, comprised of eminent medical, research, and scientific leaders: Dr. John Halamka, president of the Mayo Clinic Platform, Dr. Stéphane Laurent, former head of clinical pharmacology in Hôpital Européen Georges Pompidou in Paris, and Craig Lipset, former head of clinical innovation at Pfizer.
