Bright.md Raises $1 Million Seed Round

Portland, Ore. — October 24, 2014 — Bright.md today announced that it has closed a $1 million round of seed funding, which will enable continued development and deployment of a healthcare software-as-a-service (SaaS) solution designed to enhance communication between physicians and patients, and enable faster diagnosis and treatment. Seven Peaks Ventures was joined by Portland Seed Fund and Oregon Angel Fund in the funding round.

“For patients today, the inability to get timely access to affordable primary care is a fundamental problem,” said Ray Costantini, MD, co-founder and CEO of Bright.md. “We created Bright.md to help providers work smarter, delivering more efficient, high quality, low cost care. Bright.md is the only solution I am aware of that provides this type of value to existing delivery systems, helping patients get care from the physicians they already know and trust.”

Bright.md is at the forefront of developing SmartExam, a virtual care solution that connects patients to their physicians using their home computer or mobile device and allows them to receive treatment for less than the cost of the average co-pay. By enabling patients to input insurance information and answer questions about their symptoms, Bright.md can automate up to 60 percent of primary care visit volume and reduce the time providers need for those visits from 20 minutes down to less than two minutes. Using the software solution, physicians can treat a patient, document the visit, generate the patient’s After Visit Summary (AVS), write prescriptions and schedule follow-up visits much more efficiently. This efficiency helps practices expand capacity by 30 percent and improve margins by up to 300 percent.

The market for management of these kinds of primary care conditions is estimated to be worth $150 billion annually.

Bright.md was co-founded by Dr. Costantini and Mark Swinth in January 2014. Dr. Costantini is a pioneering healthcare business leader and a seasoned entrepreneur. Most recently he was regional medical director and director of product strategy at Providence Health and Services, where he directed development of numerous ground-breaking web products.

Swinth is an experienced business strategist and entrepreneur. He spent more than a decade at Bain & Co. as a strategy consultant, supporting Fortune 500 companies, with a focus on software, medical devices and health insurance. He also served as co-founder and senior vice president leading application development for BrandFidelity (acquired by Federal Research).

“The innovation and talent coming out of Oregon is impressive and Bright.md is among the most notable startups,” said Dino Vendetti, general partner at Seven Peaks Ventures. “The way Bright.md is leveraging software to automate and streamline the communication and interactions between doctors and their patients resonated with our team. And Ray’s and Mark’s backgrounds and passion as entrepreneurs provide the foundation needed to achieve success in this growing market.”

Bright.md also was awarded the $100,000 Seven Peaks Ventures Award at the Bend Venture Conference (BVC) on October 17. The BVC is Oregon’s largest venture capital competition. Past winners have included Portland, Ore.-based Jama and Bend, Ore.-based Manzama.