Healthcare
Here is the 12-slide presentation that convinced health-tech juggernauts like Anne Wojcicki and Elad Gil to back a public-health-data analytics startup
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- Akido Labs makes data-analytics software for first responders working with at-risk populations.
- On Thursday, it raised $11.2 million in Series A funding.
- Its software helped track COVID-19 outbreaks among populations experiencing houselessness.
Prashant Samant thought that many of public health’s biggest problems were hiding in plain sight, but few organizations had the ability to connect the dots to find a solution.
Samant started Akido Labs to do just that. He started the Los Angeles-based data-analytics company back in 2015, a year after launching the Digital Health Innovation Lab at the University of Southern California.
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On Thursday, Akido Labs announced that it raised $11.2 million in Series A funding with an additional $3.5 million in debt financing. Future Communities Capital led the round, which also included participation from Y Combinator, Comprehensive Blood and Cancer Center, Necessary Ventures, Great Oaks, Slow Ventures, Head of Google AI Jeff Dean, Coinbase board member Gokul Rajaram, 23andMe founder Anne Wojcicki, Color Genomics cofounder Elad Gil, Samsung Ventures’ David Lee, and Goldman Sachs’ Aaron Frank. To date, the company has raised $25 million.
Samant told Insider that he initially realized that many nonprofits and first responders tackling major public-health concerns, such as people experiencing homelessness or drug dependence, didn’t have access to the kind of data that could help them work with individuals better and even help predict which people were most at risk.
Instead, that data was hidden away in police records, fire-department and emergency-room reports, health records, and social-worker files. Taken together, that information could be used as a guide for people working directly with high-risk groups. But separated, the issues only stood to get worse, Samant told Insider.
So he built Akido Labs to become a one-stop shop for organizations and first responders that need access to that information via its software, which maintains and protects the integrity of the data while making it easy to understand for anyone in the field, Samant said. In practice, that means Akido deals with all the security and compliance of handling sensitive data like hospitalization records before sharing it with organizations that then determine with whom they share the information.
“Our technology platform was purposefully built from the ground up to securely manage data in compliance with HIPAA, FERPA, and many other applicable requirements,” Samant told Insider.
Akido Labs provided the presentation it used to raise $11.2 million in Series A funding to Insider for this story. The presentation has been slightly edited to remove financial information and other identifying details prior to Insider’s review.
Here is the 12-slide presentation data-analytics startup Akido Labs used to raise $11.2 million in Series A funding.
Akido Labs is a data-software startup that provides secure and compliant analysis of health and incident information to public-health organizations, nonprofits, and first responders.
Akido Labs
It provides its software to organizations that are focused on tackling major, expensive public-health issues such as homelessness and drug dependence. It also works with groups solving problems that have public-health implications over longer periods of time, such as improving the child-welfare system or designing educational systems for people experiencing blindness.
Akido Labs
Akido Labs makes software that these organizations can then use in mobile apps or websites for first responders. For example, if a paramedic is called to respond to someone allegedly intoxicated in public, they would have access to data that shows the person’s other conditions, including whether they are houseless or currently prescribed any medications through a case worker, granted the organization has permitted their access to the data.
Akido Labs
Akido Labs’ software takes data from several different sources to give first responders like paramedics or other advocacy organizations a better idea of a person’s situation. That can include information from child-welfare offices, case workers, social workers, or treatment facilities for drug dependence.
Akido Labs
Its software is built on a range of academic studies that show a correlation between certain life events and a person’s chance of becoming homeless. Its technology can be used to predict whether a person is at high risk of becoming unhoused or experiencing another public-health issue.
Akido Labs
Samant told Insider that he has been building companies for the last 15 years, but he felt compelled to start Akido Labs given his background in security and compliance work on top of his experience starting the Digital Health Innovation Lab at USC to research solutions to public-health crises.
Akido Labs
Akido Labs’ technology takes data from different sources, standardizes it, and ensures that it is secure in a way that is compliant with current local and federal laws. Many organizations may not have the resources or technical know-how to bring all these different data sources together themselves, Samant said.
Akido Labs
Akido Labs’ software is currently available nationwide, and the company is actively working with organizations in more than 100 cities. It is most active in the Los Angeles area, where it was founded and is still largely based.
Akido Labs
Although its software works for many public-health initiatives, its primary goal is to decrease the overall amount local and state governments spend to combat certain issues by ensuring the funds are used efficiently.
Akido Labs
During the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, Akido Labs worked with Los Angeles County officials to monitor and predict outbreaks among the city’s unhoused population. It also helped officials launch a contact-tracing and vaccination program once vaccines were available. It claims to have helped facilitate more than 12,000 vaccinations.
Akido Labs
It has also worked with the city of Santa Monica to better address and serve the area’s unhoused population and has helped streamline child-welfare organizations that are facing budget cuts due to COVID-19. It uses information from the same sources to create what it calls “programs” that are built on its data software for a variety of different types of organizations, similar to how infrastructure technology like Amazon Web Services can act as the backbone for many different kinds of online businesses.
Akido Labs
Samant’s cofounder is also part of the team that created the D-Health Lab at the University of Southern California in 2014. The team created the lab to further research how technology could be used to benefit underserved populations.
Akido Labs