H|T: The Healthtech Times – Vitalik Buterin gives financial boost to 🇨🇦 doctors tracking carbon dioxide levels

Plus: The many hurdles life sciences startups must overcome to commercialize.

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Vitalik Buterin fund gives financial booster shot to doctor’s startup assessing airborne COVID-19 risk (BETAKIT)

Emergency room physician, Dr. Kashif Pirzada created the Raven Clean Air Map as part of a three-person team after seeing what he called a lack of systemic efforts at COVID-19 prevention.

“I’ve seen a public response, a government response that’s always slow and reactive,” he told BetaKit. “There isn’t sort of an attention paid to the science especially, or an attention paid to prevention.”


Amazon Among Bidders for Signify Health (THE WALL STREET JOURNAL)

Signify is for sale in an auction that could value it at more than $8 billion, the people said. Bids are due around Labor Day, according to the people, but it is always possible an eager bidder could strike a deal before then.


Canadian tech companies continue to hire despite downturn – here’s an (incomplete) list (BETAKIT)

Over 300 companies have now added their job listings, indicating a strong and continued desire to hire #CDNtech talent.


Mental Health Platform Alma Raises $130M During Therapist Shortage (CRUNCHBASE NEWS)

Alma is a membership-based platform that allows independent therapists who run their own practices deal with administrative tasks like setting up insurance and billing. Therapists also get access to teletherapy software, scheduling tools and other colleagues who are part of the network.


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Three Canadian startups selected for Google’s latest Women Founders accelerator cohort (BETAKIT)

MedEssist, along with Blossom Social and Emaww, is part of the third installation of Google’s Women Founders program. Based in Toronto, MedEssist offers a platform for pharmacies to modernize their operations with features like management for refills, vaccines, and COVID-19 testing, as well as medication inventory.


Amazon Care and Care Medical are shutting down. Is it really that big a deal? (MED CITY NEWS)

For all the tech bros out there eager to ram technology down the inefficient, hopelessly-fragmented and in-need-of-rescuing healthcare industry, this should serve as a clear cautionary tale. You cannot shortchange the quality of healthcare delivery as the Washington Post so incisively reported about Amazon Care, to satisfy a corporate mantra of faster, better, cheaper.


The many hurdles life sciences startups must overcome to commercialize (BETAKIT)

A lot of fantastic innovations find their origins in lab environments, but a working experiment doesn’t easily translate to a commercialized product. Speaking with BetaKit, Muggah shared some common hurdles that life sciences startups face as they move from functioning ideas to marketable products.


ADHD digital therapeutic maker Akili goes public (MOBIHEALTH NEWS)

The newly public digital health firm said the deal brought in more than $163 million before paying transaction expenses and advisory fees. Akili plans to use the cash to launch EndeavorRx, its FDA-cleared therapeutic for kids ages 8 to 12 who have attention issues. It’s scheduled to become available in the U.S. in the fourth quarter of this year.


AlayaCare lays off 14 percent of employees, slows M&A plans (BETAKIT)

The Montréal-based healthtech startup has also scaled back its near-term merger and acquisition (M&A) plans and let two of its office leases expire in Victoria, British Columbia, and Queens, New York, as part of a broader push to become more cash-efficient. AlayaCare’s CEO said startup’s revenue growth has not followed its “aggressive investment.”


Digital Diagnostics dials up $75M funding for diabetic retinopathy AI (FIERCE BIOTECH)

There’s no shortage of artificial intelligence algorithms that have been trained to pick up on a wide variety of diseases and other health conditions—from heart disease to stroke to pulmonary embolism—by looking only at standard imaging data.


MolecuLight secures funding from BDC Capital, iGan Ventures for global expansion (BETAKIT)

These injections of new capital are earmarked for supporting the company’s global expansion as it aims to meet growing market demand.


Petfolk Raises $40M As Telehealth Reaches Veterinary Care (CRUNCHBASE NEWS)

“As you go to your human doctor, sometimes you leave scratching your head saying, ‘OK, what did they say? What do I do? How do I do this?’ And so we really wanted to create a support network of virtual care on top of physical space,” co-founder Dr. Audrey Wystrach said. “Empowering the customer with a ton of information will ultimately lead to better outcomes for our pets.”


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Michael Edgar

Michael Edgar

Michael is a multimedia journalist working out of the U.K. and a staff writer for BetaKit.

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