AirTree Ventures has led a $10.15 million seed round for a start-up that aims to put Dr Google out of business.
Human has the objective of giving everyone access to personalised healthcare through linking doctors and medical researchers with communities of patients via a regulated online platform.
In addition to AirTree, other investors in the round include Kim Jackson and Scott Farquhar’s Skip Capital, and, as individual investors, David Shein of OIF Ventures partner, Michael Gonski of law firm Herbert Smith Freehills, and Robert Kawalsky head of product at Canva.
Human’s founders are Georgia Vidler, former head of product at Canva, and Kate Lambridis, formerly a senior product manager at Canva. While working at Canva, they discovered they both had experienced frustration searching the internet for quality information about complex health conditions.
That provided the inspiration for them to set up Human last November and begin building a beta product as they looked for funding.
The value in the Human concept was quickly recognised by AirTree partner Elicia McDonald. McDonald had also experienced frustration seeking appropriate treatment for a complex medical problem. McDonald’s first daughter was born with a skin condition that required specialist medical treatment.
“There were various treatment options, each with their own risks, and we were getting conflicting medical advice from specialists,” she said. “I remember nursing a newborn, searching the internet for academic papers on the side effects of potential treatment options and emailing summaries of pros/cons to my husband and both sets of grandparents as the gravity of making a medical decision for my child weighed so heavily on me as a new parent.”
According to McDonald, there are a billion health related searches on Google every day. Clearly, there must be a better way of giving everyone access to personalised healthcare. That, she said, is what Human will try to achieve.
The online platform will present reliable information on what doctors, researchers and patients are learning about treatment options. This will help doctors and patients build personalised and data-driven treatment plans.
Vidler and Lambridis have already brought together a team of 18 software engineers, product developers, researchers and scientists who are beginning to build their vision.
They are committed to keeping the core platform free for patients and doctors and are exploring ways to provide cash flow to support the operation such as introducing fees for users to access higher level services – the fremium model that works well in many services applications.
Image: Vidler and Lambridis sign their AirTree terms sheet.