What do you get if you combine the broad trends of smartphones, wearables, Internet of Things, an individual desire for control and healthcare costs for society? You get VCs investing in health-tech startups, that’s what.
And the latest evidence of this is Stockholm-based Lifesum raising a $10m funding round led by Nokia Growth Partners (NGP), with Draper Esprit, Bauer Media Group and SparkLabs Global Ventures.
Lifesum, which tracks what you eat and your exercise, says it now has 15 million users. That’s less than the 80 million users which MyFitnessPal had when it was acquired by athletic apparel maker Under Armour in February 2015. But Lifesum is aiming at doing more that tracking what you had for breakfast.
Lifesum is now seeking partnerships with organisations in other sectors, including food, fitness, healthcare, DNA and pharmaceuticals.
So for instance, this year Lifesum launched a partnership with food and juice bar Crussh in the UK which saw it provide user data which revealed the nutritional deficiencies in London, which was then used to create tailor-made juices to provide the nutrients that locals were lacking.
Henrik Torstensson, CEO of Lifesum, says the cash will be used to expand globally especially in the US: “I especially consider the NGP Silicon Valley office to be a resource that we can start leveraging immediately since the US is becoming more and more significant to Lifesum.”
NGP is invested in GetYourGuide, language-learning app Babbel, mobile game and app developer MAG Interactive, and artificial intelligence company WorkFusion, amongst others.
Walter Masalin, who leads NGP’s investment in Lifesum, says: “Digital health is still at an early stage, but with the current exponential development in mobile technology and IOT, we will soon see rapidly increased empowerment of the individual.”
Vishal Gulati, Partner at Draper Esprit, comments that they were attracted by the “digital technology hotbed of Scandinavia.”
Lifesum is the market-leading health app in Scandinavia, Germany, France, Italy, France and Russia and has been featured in Apple Keynote events, and as one of 40 apps to launch with the Apple Watch, as well as being a launch partner for Google Fit, Google Now and Samsung Gear S2.
