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Healthline Secures $14 Million in Funding From Leading Strategic Investors
27 January 2006 Healthline (www.healthline.com), the first Internet search engine dedicated to consumer healthcare, today announced it has secured $14 million in funding. The series was led by VantagePoint Venture Partners, a leading venture capital fund with over $2.8 billion under management, with additional backing from U.K.-based Reed Elsevier Ventures, the venture arm of the world's largest publisher of medical information, Mitsui & Co, Ltd., one of Japan's largest general trading companies, and JHK Investments, a healthcare venture capital firm.
This round of funding will accelerate Healthline's ability to capitalize on the rapidly growing demand for online resources to help consumers make more informed and confident healthcare choices. Since its Q4 2005 beta launch, Healthline has attracted nearly 1.5 million unique visitors who have benefited from the company's innovative Medically Guided Search™ experience. The backing from the world's leading medical information provider and a global trading company with a commitment to expand its base in the Japanese healthcare system will enable Healthline to focus on continuing an aggressive growth strategy through enhancing its product portfolio and building strategic partnerships.
"The market opportunity for vertical search in healthcare is quite clear, with upwards of 100 million U.S. consumers accessing the Internet for health and medical information annually. VantagePoint continues to be very bullish on the growing demand for individuals to use the Web to become better informed and manage this critical issue in their lives," said Richard Harroch, a managing director in VantagePoint Venture Partners' Software & Internet group. "Healthline has quickly established itself as the premiere health search technology that will accelerate the growth around this major consumer trend."
Healthline's Medically Guided Search platform addresses the shortcomings of general search engines by using a combination of semantic search technology and a comprehensive consumer health taxonomy -- the largest of its kind -- comprised of more than 850,000 medical terms and synonyms, and over 50,000 interrelated medical concepts. These resources uniquely enable Healthline to translate everyday language and precisely match it to medical terminology so consumers can quickly filter results to the exact information needed. The Company's proprietary HealthMaps®, developed in conjunction with more than 1,100 leading physicians and medical informatics professionals, enable consumers to visually explore all of the information related to a disease or condition without the need to repeatedly type new queries into the search box.
"Healthline's innovative search technology, coupled with its commitment to provide high-quality, trusted medical information and resources, make it a clear choice for investment by Reed Elsevier Ventures," said Kevin Brown, partner at Reed Elsevier Ventures. "Our financial partnership with Healthline should enable Reed Elsevier to leverage its deep content assets as the company continues to extend its global healthcare publishing business."
Kenichi Kitajima, general manager of the Pharmaceutical and Medical Business unit of Mitsui, added, "Mitsui is very enthusiastic about Healthline's position as a leading vertical search platform whose unique capabilities are needed in Japan and beyond. We believe that Healthline's mission of filling the healthcare information gap between consumers and physicians will perfectly meet unfulfilled needs in Japan, as it does in the U.S. Healthline understands the changing dynamics in consumer healthcare and has developed significant intellectual property to address the global demand for improving patient education. As the healthcare systems in Japan and other countries struggle to keep pace with the needs of an aging population, we see a great opportunity for combining our resources and efforts."
"Healthline has consistently held to a single goal: to deliver exactly what consumers are looking for in healthcare search -- trusted, comprehensive and relevant medical information that empowers them to make better and more confident decisions about their health," said West Shell III, chairman and chief executive officer of Healthline. "The market demand for the company's product portfolio is accelerating, and the addition of these two highly respected companies, with their world-class medical expertise and distribution networks, reinforces Healthline's leadership position."
About Healthline
Healthline Networks, Inc. provides the easiest way for consumers to find, understand and manage healthcare information, empowering them to make more informed decisions that lead to better health. Created in collaboration with 1,100 physicians and medical specialists, Healthline's unique Medically Guided Search™ experience is powered by a consumer health taxonomy that encompasses nearly one million medical terms and synonyms -- the largest of its kind, and one which translates everyday language and precisely matches it to complex medical information. Healthline is defining the HealthWeb, a filtered directory currently consisting of more than 66,000 health-oriented websites and 90 million pages of medical content. Combined with the company's visual HealthMaps® and personalization tools, Healthline connects users with the information, people and resources not readily available through general search engines or today's online health destinations. Based in San Francisco, Healthline is backed by VantagePoint Venture Partners, Reed Elsevier Ventures, Mitsui & Co., Ltd., and JHK Investments, LLC.
About VantagePoint Venture Partners
VantagePoint Venture Partners is among the leading venture firms in the world with more than $2.8 billion of capital under management. The Firm invests exclusively in technology driven companies and is organized around deep expertise and resources in five principal areas of interest: CleanTech, Communications, Healthcare, Semiconductors, and Software/Internet. VantagePoint is a multi-stage investor, investing in high growth businesses at all stages of development. The Firm supports each of its portfolio companies, including such investments as Allbusiness.com, Datran Media, and Intermix Media with the resources of a dedicated team of VantagePoint professionals able to contribute a blend of company building, technology, operations, marketing, and corporate finance expertise. For more information: www.vpvp.com.
About JHK Investments
JHK Investments, LLC is an investment partnership founded by the former senior management of the United States Surgical Corporation: Leon C. Hirsch, USSC's former chairman, CEO and founder; Turi Josefsen, former president of international operations and executive vice president of USSC and Robert A. Knarr, former president of North American operations and executive vice president of USSC. Collectively, the partners have close to 100 years of experience in marketing medical and other products worldwide, and built and managed a $1.5 billion medical device business.
About Reed Elsevier Ventures
Reed Elsevier Ventures is the venture arm of Reed Elsevier Group plc and was established in 2000. The Venture team is responsible for making investments in innovative companies that have the potential to provide the Group with new technologies, products, services or customers. Reed Elsevier's trusted brands, customer reach and ever increasing digital delivery make the Group an ideal commercial partner for emerging best-of-breed companies seeking market acceleration and a strong relationship with a leading global publisher. The team is comprised of experienced investors in the US and European venture capital markets.
Reed Elsevier Group Plc is a world-leading publisher and information provider. It is owned equally by its two parent companies, Reed Elsevier PLC and Reed Elsevier NV. The parent companies are listed on the London, Amsterdam and New York Stock Exchanges, under the following ticker symbols: London: REL; Amsterdam: REN; New York: RUK and ENL. In 2004, Reed Elsevier made adjusted profit before taxation of £1,027 million on turnover of £4,812 million. The group employs 36,000 people, including approximately 20,000 in North America. Operating in the scientific, legal, educational and business-to-business sectors, Reed Elsevier provides high value and flexible information solutions to professional end users, with increasing emphasis on Internet delivery.
About Mitsui and Co. Ltd.
Mitsui and Co., Ltd. (TSE: 8031) (NASDAQ: MITSY) is one of the largest trading houses in the world and is active in a wide range of trading activities, along with the development of energy sources and other natural resources for various industries. These include export, import, domestic and offshore transactions in such industrial materials as steel, non-ferrous metals and chemicals as well as in machinery, electronic and industrial products and lifestyle-related products, including foodstuffs, textiles and general merchandise. Mitsui is also involved in various businesses related to the aforementioned activities, as well as telecommunications and IT, service businesses and regional development.
Press and Industry Analysts:
Andrea Cousens
Eastwick Communications
650-480-4058
Email Contact
SOURCE: Healthline Networks
Source: marketwire
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