Four StartUp Health Companies Closed Rounds in November, Totalling More Than $50M

Valera Health, Gabbi, Cylica, and Lazzaro Medical raised significant rounds last month, helping them take strides in tele-mental health, cancer detection, drug discovery, and respiratory disease.

While the investment market continues to experience well-publicized headwinds, four recent rounds of funding raised by StartUp Health portfolio companies serve as a reminder that health remains a global investment priority. Lazzaro Medical, Gabbi, Cyclica, and Valera Health are each pushing the envelope in their respective fields of respiratory disease, breast cancer, drug discovery, and mental health, and this influx of more than $50M in combined investment enables the growth of their services and the launch of new, patented solutions.

Valera Health raises $44.5M in growth equity, ensuring the tele-mental health innovator’s ability to provide specialized, affordable care to underserved populations

Valera Health, the New York-based virtual mental health provider devoted to expert care for all in need, raised $44.5M in growth equity. Led by the healthcare-focused private equity firm Heritage Group, and with participation from Cigna Ventures, Horizon Healthcare Services, and existing investors such as Windham Ventures, AXA Venture Partners, Aquiline Technology Partners, Trinnovate Ventures (BCBS AZ), Figure Eight Investments, Watershed VC, and Alsora Capital, the funding ensures Valera’s personalized, collaborative services are available to everyone seeking mental healthcare at a price they can afford.

The company’s reach is expansive and immersive, providing care at a manageable cost to all communities regardless of ethnicity and socio-economic background with solutions that support kids between ages six to 18 and adults. Valera is keen on working with those in both rural and urban settings as well as LGBTQ+ and BIPOC, creating personalized plans that reflect the cultural and societal needs of everyone.

Valera’s telehealth platform offers a team-based model that utilizes a health connector who links patients with their personal support group of therapists, psychiatrists, coaches, and physicians using proprietary technology and analytics. With the infusion of $44.5M, the company makes the behavioral care they specialize in even more accessible to every facet of the public and addresses the full range of mental health needs from the mildest to most severe by expanding its already established partnerships with leading healthcare systems and plans around the country.

The menu of solutions that patients have access to through Valera’s tele-mental health platform includes assessments, monitoring, chats, and even meditation; and with the growth equity funding, the solutions they can provide to support mental wellness goes even further. Per Thomas Tsang, MD, the CEO & Co-founder of Valera Health, “This financing will enable us to make quality mental healthcare accessible for those most in need, including those with serious and persistent mental illness.”

Gabbi raises $4.4M to eradicate late-stage breast cancer diagnosis

A delayed diagnosis caused Kaitlin Christine, CEO & Founder of Gabbi, to lose her mother to breast cancer ten years ago. At the young age of 24, she herself was diagnosed during a preventative mastectomy and chose to dedicate herself to helping women understand their risks early on and get the support they need to act. Thanks to the $4.4M recently raised, Portland, OR-based Gabbi is now better able to fulfill the goal it set for itself: ensure breast cancer is detected at the earliest possible stages while it is still treatable and survivable. Bread and Butter Ventures led the round and was joined by Female Founders Fund, WR Hambrecht, Phoenix Rising, Claridge Ventures Advisors VC, Coyote Ventures, Gaingels, and angels including David Kidder, Sarah Jones Simmer, and Naseem Sayani, to name a few.

By focusing on personalizing breast health, Gabbi works with women of all ages and ethnicities to provide an all-inclusive solution that includes risk assessment results, individualized ongoing care plans, and even a care concierge through their Gabbi Risk Assessment Model (GRAM). This proprietary machine learning risk model takes four different categories of data into consideration: demographics, lifestyle, medical history, and family history. The almost $5M enables Gabbi — selected as a Rising Star in the 2022 UCSF Health Hub Digital Health Awards last month as well as the Rising Star for the Health Tech Innovation Challenge by Accenture in 2021 — to be offered to employees through their employers.

Cyclica secures C$2.4M grant for a multi-targeted drug discovery program

Classified as a “neo-biotech,” Toronto-based Cyclica is an industry leader in AI drug discovery, with a focus on CNS, oncology, and auto-immune diseases. Last month they inked a C$2.4M grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to apply their platform to expand non-hormonal contraceptive choices for women in developing countries.

Hormone-based contraceptives are known to cause wide-ranging side effects, reducing their appeal. Research on non-hormonal contraceptives has been hindered by a lack of validated and enabled drug targets. Cyclica’s validated drug discovery platform could change that equation.

“While Cyclica builds and advances a commercial portfolio of drug discovery programs, it is part of our corporate ethos to work alongside nonprofit organizations to advance research for unmet medical needs,” said Naheed Kurji, CEO & Co-founder of Cyclica. “Among women who want to delay or avoid pregnancy, concerns about side effects are the most common reason they give for not using modern contraception. We are honored to have received support from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to work towards discovering new, hormone-free contraceptives that will expand the range of contraceptive options available to women and girls.”

“Cyclica has a track record of success in the low-data target area for unmet clinical needs. We have the experience needed to tackle this currently undrugged, high-need opportunity, and progress it to the clinic on a faster and less costly trajectory than that offered by traditional methods,” said Mike Palovich, chief science officer of Cyclica. “I’m impressed by the level of domain expertise within the BMGF scientific team, and we’re looking forward to collaborating with them toward this shared goal.”

Lazzaro Medical’s $1M raise paves the way for innovative, non-invasive respiratory health treatment and recovery

When Boulder, CO-based Lazzaro Medical — a company devoted to restoring respiratory health — received a $1M strategic investment from New York State’s largest healthcare provider, Northwell Health, it afforded them the opportunity to launch their patented, robotic LM Scaffold System™ to change the way tracheobronchomalacia (TBM) patients receive treatment. TBM is a rare respiratory condition that occurs when the tissue around the windpipe or trachea is soft and weak, and comes in two different types — primary TBM, which is congenital and usually reveals itself in babies and young children, and secondary TBM, developed due to underlying conditions such as chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). TBM is often either under-diagnosed or completely undiagnosed. Yet, once discovered, the traditional treatment is heavily invasive and frequently worse on patients than the disease itself.

The LM Scaffold System™ utilizes a technique pioneered by robotic thoracic surgeon Richard Lazzaro, MD, FACS, Chief Medical Officer & Co-founder of Lazzaro Medical, who says it “will dramatically reduce operating times by an estimated 50% and shorten patient recovery time from months to weeks.” The new funding sets the stage to commercially offer Lazzaro Medical’s Robotic Minimally Invasive Tracheal Repair (MITR™) surgery with its 0% mortality and 100% positive recovery rate to TBM sufferers via their LM Scaffold System™.

Pragmatic optimism about the future

StartUp Health congratulates Cylica, Lazzaro Medical, Gabbi, and Valera Health on their raises this month. A combined investment of nearly $50M into health moonshots like ending cancer and improving mental health is made all the more significant given the downward macro economic trends we see in the world. We’re hopeful we’ll see this trend continue into 2023 as investors prioritize high-impact startups improving health and wellbeing globally.

Data is from StartUp Health Insights, the most comprehensive funding database for health innovation. Get all our free quarterly reports and sign up for StartUp Health Insider™ to get funding insights, news, and special updates delivered to your inbox.

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Four StartUp Health Companies Closed Rounds in November, Totalling More Than $50M was originally published in StartUp Health on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

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