Canadian-founded, San Francisco-based Power has raised $16.3 million CAD ($12 million USD) in Series A funding to bolster its clinical trial discovery platform.
The all-equity round, which closed in late December 2023, was led by Kin Ventures and Contrary, with participation from 20Growth, 14W, Common Metal, Otherwise Fund, as well as returning investors Air Angels, ARTIS Ventures, and Footwork.
Founded in 2021 by Canadian entrepreneurs Brandon Li and Michael ‘Bask’ Gill with a mission to modernize the discovery and accessibility of clinical trials, Power’s software allows patients in the United States to find treatment options within their area.
The idea for the platform was sparked by the founders’ respective experiences searching for clinical trials when their loved ones were diagnosed with cancer. In a statement announcing Power’s recent funding, Gill recounted when his father was no longer responding to chemotherapy treatments following a multiple myeloma diagnosis in 2021. Gill said he spent hours searching through studies to find the best possible treatment. When he found a promising solution, he discovered his father’s first line of treatment disqualified him from the trial.
Aimed at making this process easier at a stressful time in people’s lives, the Power platform allows patients to search for relevant clinical trials and research, filtered by location or individually specific considerations, like genetic markers, while also helping clinical trials recruit more patients.
Before they founded Power, Li, and Gill worked at Toronto-based digital home management startup Setter, which was acquired by San Francisco-based services marketplace Thumbtack in 2020. During their time at Setter, Li served as head of revenue and operations, while Gill was the startup’s head of growth.
Before Setter, Gill worked as the director of performance marketing at care provider marketplace CareGuide and is currently an advisor at artificial intelligence-powered customer service platform Ada. Li has also co-founded two Toronto-based companies, Bolt Logistics and Suits U, a non-profit that connected students with professional clothing.
Power emerged from stealth in August 2022 with $7 million USD in seed funding led by Footwork and Charles River Ventures. In the last year, Power claims over 600,000 patients used Power to discover trials, and 90 percent of them were previously unconnected with existing research sites.
The startup is also focused on connecting underserved populations with research trials, claiming that 40 percent of those 600,000 patients were non-white.
“We believe groundbreaking therapeutic options should be available to all patients — regardless of geographical location, ethnicity or socioeconomic background,” the startup said in a statement when it emerged from stealth. “We want to equalize a process that historically has left out women, minorities, and those without financial means or sophisticated medical teams.”
Feature image courtesy Unsplash. Photo by the National Cancer Institute.