Albuquerque-based startup Karoo Health is deploying a new digital platform this summer for real-time management of cardiovascular healthcare, backed by $3.4 million in investment in new ventures, the company announced Wednesday morning.
Founded in 2021, the company has built its fully digital ecosystem and has already lined up nearly 100 cardiovascular healthcare providers to start using the Karoo platform to manage comprehensive, coordinated support services for heart patients, said the co-founder of the company. and CEO Ian Koons.
“We’re shooting in New Mexico and Arizona this summer,” Koons told the paper. “We partnered with up to 100 providers, including 75 cardiologists, on the first launch of our system. We will go live with our first patient later this month.”
Kunz said the system will connect all healthcare providers involved in a patient’s care into an integrated platform to update all information, share it with each other, and coordinate timely intervention and counseling for patients through text communications.
“The system brings everyone together through integrated technology to match care teams and patients across the healthcare system,” said Koons. “…it is a hybrid delivery model to provide comprehensive services to patients.”
This includes personalized care plans for patients supervised by cardiologists with direct and ongoing guidance to individuals through a virtual care team that includes a healthcare coach and other professionals such as nutritionists and nurse practitioners.
The company raised just over $1 million last year from two private companies, Panoramic Ventures and FirstMile Ventures, to build out its entire system and start reaching healthcare providers. On Wednesday, it closed a new $3.4 million round of seed capital led by Illinois-based First Trust Capital Partners LLC that will help fund this summer’s commercial launch.
“Karoo’s innovative and holistic approach to value-based cardiology care has positioned the company as a market leader,” said John Phillips, Managing Director of First Trust, in a statement. “With the guidance of a world-class leadership team, Karoo delivers the solutions to pioneer a major paradigm shift for cardiac healthcare delivery networks.”
Karoo’s management team, made up of healthcare veterans, aims to increase cardiovascular care through the use of technology and comprehensive patient support, said the company’s co-founder and chief financial officer, Ben Selzer.
“(This) seed investment will fund the start of Patient Life this summer and help accelerate delivery of much-needed value-based initiatives in the heart space,” Selzer said in a statement.
The lack of comprehensive, real-time cardiovascular support services inspired Selzer and Koons to launch Karoo, especially after Koon’s best friend died of a heart attack at the age of 29.
“Cardiovascular care is often disjointed and unsupported…and outcomes across the country are getting worse, not better,” said Koons. “I wanted technology to prevent such outcomes.”
In traditional healthcare delivery models, it can often take six weeks or longer for patients with heart disease to see a cardiologist, who will then prescribe medications and primary care instructions for patients, Kunz said.
“Patients often come out frustrated that there is no one to guide them through their illness,” Koons said. “Through the system we’ve created, the Virtual Care team will check in, support you and talk you through your journey.”
The company is headquartered in Albuquerque, but as an early stage startup, it does not yet have a corporate office. It will expand here over time, Koons said, which could create 200 or more jobs over the next three to five years.
“This is a local Albuquerque company that can create significant jobs for the state with an innovative system to attack one of America’s biggest health crises – cardiovascular disease,” said Koons.
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