With heart issues being responsible for ~30% of global deaths, and only rising, getting medical attention regarding your heat conditions should not be a hassle. Thankfully Moving Analytics is simplifying this whole process. The company that helps cardiac clinics implement an at-home rehab program, the process is seamless, saves the staff a lot of time and money, and most importantly makes saving lives easier. Moving Analytics uses the evidence-based protocol MULTIFIT and is currently working with the American Red Cross and USC’s School of Medicine to ameliorate this problem.
LA TechWatch spoke with the CEO Harsh Vathsangam about their recent round of funding as well as the growing startup scene in LA.
Who were your investors and how much did you raise?
We raised a Series Seed from our lead investors in San Francisco – Launchpad Digital Health and a major investment from Wisconsin– HealthX Ventures.
Tell us about your product or service.
We help hospitals take care of patients who have had recent heart attacks, heart failures and heart surgeries. We do this through home-based cardiac rehab programs. By implementing our solution in hospitals, more patients get better care and hospitals reduce readmission costs and earn additional revenue.
What inspired you to start the company?
I am motivated by using my technical skills to literally save the lives of millions of people. With Moving Analytics, I saw the perfect storm of technology maturation (through cloud services and mobile technologies), an evidence-based program (through MULTIFIT) and policy changes (through the Affordable Care Act) that made it possible to impact so many lives. It was and is a once in a lifetime opportunity to make history.
How is it different?
We are based on MULTIFIT, an evidence-based protocol developed and validated at Stanford University over 20 years of research.
What market you are targeting and how big is it?
There are 3.5M patients in the United States who are eligible for our service or a $1B to $2B market.
What’s your business model?
We charge a per-patient license fee for each patient enrolled using our software.
Can you tell us a little about the cardiac rehab research that backs up the company?
Through multiple clinical trials, MULTIFIT has been proven to be as safe and effective as traditional cardiac rehab, with a 70% enrollment rate, 90% completion rate and 6% readmission rate. At hospitals like Kaiser Permanent, MULTIFIT is the standard of care and has been validated on over 70,000 patients.
What was the funding process like?
Hectic and crazy. It really is all-consuming and requires a lot of hard work, persistence and self-belief. But it was also a tremendous learning experience in that we were constantly challenged in our assumptions and that led us to go back to the drawing board and come back better prepared and improved how we thought about our business. It taught us to think big!
What are the biggest challenges that you faced while raising capital?
Healthcare has slow sales-cycles, it takes a while to close a hospital sale. This is represents a risk to many investors particularly for young startups. In addition, there are a lot of “me-too” solutions, particularly in digital health and it is hard to separate the wheat from the chaff. It’s up to a company to really find its differentiating factor and communicate it effectively.
What factors about your business led your investors to write the check?
An amazing, hardworking and world-class team consisting of engineers, designers and scientists, an evidence-based program that has been proven to work, strong customer traction and market validation.
What are the milestones you plan to achieve in the next six months?
We want to expand our program in our current hospital partners and sign an additional 30 hospitals. We also aim to release new products.
What advice can you offer companies in Los Angeles that do not have a fresh injection of capital in the bank?
Work really hard to prove out the business case of your company. Try to figure out as early as possible who your first customers are, why they are paying you for your product and what more can you do to make them happy. Your best source of funding is your customers. Investors will naturally follow. Make friends, you never know when and where they will be useful. Be very judicious with your time, every second of your day should be spent in making your business better (that includes taking care of yourself too).
Where do you see the company going now over the near term?
Making our customers the happiest people on the planet! We’re looking for talented individuals in development and sales who can join our team and join us in our mission to impact the lives of millions of people. The best part is, we can do this today!
Where is the best place in LA to watch the sunset?
Griffith Observatory, duh!