NiaHealth raises $5.75 million as it hopes to become a household name in preventative healthcare

Edmonton-based healthtech startup NiaHealth is looking to become a fixture in Canadian households after raising a $5.75 million CAD seed round led by Golden Ventures.

NiaHealth aims to prevent disease and other medical conditions by streamlining medical tests, which are co-signed by clinicians, through an annual subscription model.

“We’ve built the whole solution in the spirit of being a complement to the health system.”
Sameer Dhar

Packages range from $299 to $1,299 per year and can include a test for 35 biomarkers, such as heart cholesterol levels, blood platelet counts, and metabolism, and one-on-one consultations with a clinician. Co-founded by CEO Sameer Dhar, clinical director Tanya ter Keurs, COO Mike Goss, and CTO Saif Uddin Mahmud, the company emerged from stealth with $2.5 million in pre-seed funding led by Version One Ventures this past April.

“What we found is that there is a huge demand from people across the country to own their own health outcomes, and they’re increasingly looking for options outside of traditional care,” Dhar told BetaKit in an interview. “But we’ve built the whole solution in the spirit of being a complement to the health system.”

The company had to navigate the question of its place in the Canadian healthcare system early, contemplating how much Canadians should, and would be willing, to pay for healthcare, as well as getting its care accepted by the publicly funded system. Dhar said putting clinicians forward, and standing behind every test, played a big part in establishing its legitimacy with the system and its customers.

“In a consumer’s mind, they need to have the trust that there’s more than just AI [artificial intelligence] sitting behind the scenes getting insight into their health,” Dhar said.

NiaHealth advertises its plans as including a “Hand-Crafted Comprehensive Health Summary by Expert Clinicians – Not AI”—bolded and italicized. While NiaHealth does incorporate AI in its workflow, Dhar claimed that, in a Canadian context, there is reasonable skepticism about the “black box” of AI telling someone about their health.

“When I look at some of the other companies in the space, their model or framework for using AI is more about [taking] the clinician out of the loop,” Dhar said. “As we’ve been building our system, it’s always been about how [we] make the clinician the most effective possible.”

Dhar said it means a lot to the company to have prominent Canadian venture capitalists backing a Canadian story.

While NiaHealth’s services were only available in Alberta, British Columbia, Manitoba, and Ontario when it exited stealth, with consistent 30 percent month-over-month growth it has since expanded to all provinces, except Québec.

Getting into Québec requires a bit more work and investment, Dhar said, but NiaHealth plans to be available in the province by the end of the year.

The healthtech startup is now focused on developing its market presence and product with the proceeds from the seed round it raised earlier this month.

“We want to make sure that almost every Canadian [knows what] Nia is, because we can support all Canadians,” Dhar said. “I think that’s just an expensive endeavor that we have to keep investing in.”

The round, raised entirely on a simple agreement for future equity (SAFE), featured participation from an assortment of Canadian investors in addition to Golden Ventures, including The51, Fullscript CEO Kyle Braatz, Klue CEO Jason Smith, CIBC Capital Markets managing director Kathy Butler, and Good Future’s Satish Kanwar and Arati Sharma (Good Future is the majority owner of BetaKit). Returning investors Version One Ventures founder Boris Wertz and Wattpad co-founder Ivan Yuen also participated.

Dhar said it means a lot to the company to have prominent Canadian venture capitalists backing a Canadian story, especially in healthcare.

“Canadians [are] protective of our healthcare system, and I think [that] is an important piece of the puzzle that we’re honoring when keeping the Canadian story alive, even from a cap table perspective,” Dhar said.

Feature image courtesy NiaHealth.