Apr 25
2019
Mint.com Founder Launches “Vital”
Vital, the AI-powered software increasing productivity and improving patient health in hospital emergency rooms, today announces a $5.2 million Seed round led by First Round Capital and Threshold Ventures (formerly DFJ Venture). Vital uses artificial intelligence (AI) and natural language processing (NLP) to triage patients before they see a doctor, making it easier and faster for providers to coordinate care and prioritize patients.
Raised to help grow the Vital team of engineers and data scientists, and to bring its secure, cloud-based software to emergency rooms across the United States, the round also includes Bragiel Brothers, Meridian Street Capital, Refactor Capital and SV Angel, with angel investment from Vivek Garipalli, CEO of CloverHealth; and Nat Turner and Zach Weinberg, founders of Flatiron Health. Josh Kopelman, founder and partner at First Round Capital, will join Vital’s board of directors.
“The HITECH* Act was well-intentioned, but now hospitals rely on outdated, slow and inefficient software – and nowhere is it more painful than in the emergency room,” said Vital founder and CEO Aaron Patzer in a statement. “Doctors and nurses often put more time into paperwork and data entry than patient care. Vital uses smart, easy tech to reverse that, cutting wait times in half, reducing provider burnout and saving hospitals millions of dollars.”
Patzer brings capital to Vital from his success with Mint.com, which transformed bank data into an easy consumer product. The decision to take on an even higher-stakes, more regulated industry came after seeing firsthand the antiquated software hospitals use. Teaming up with Justin Schrager, doctor of emergency medicine at Emory University Hospital, Patzer invested $1 million and two years of peer-reviewed academic study, technical research and development to create Vital.
“Vital successfully built software with a modern, no-training-required interface, while also meeting HIPAA compliance. It’s what people expect from consumer software, but rarely see in healthcare,” said Kopelman. “Turning massive amounts of complex and regulated data into clean, easy products is what Mint.com did for money, and we’re proud to back a solution that’ll do the same in life and death situations.”
*The ACA’s Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health