NarrativeDx Builds Leading AI Platform for Patient Experience, Secures Series A Funding for Continued Growth

Innovative Platform Uses Natural Language Processing and Machine Learning to Help Hospitals Identify Problems, Improve Care Delivery, and Increase Referrals

AUSTIN, Texas, May 9, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- NarrativeDx, the artificial intelligence (AI) platform for patient experience, announced Tuesday a Series A funding led by LiveOak Venture Partners, Cultivation Capital and HealthX Ventures to sustain transformational growth in their next-generation AI and natural language processing technology. As a market leader in patient experience analytics, NarrativeDx provides health care providers and organizations with the most accurate, evidence-based and automated technology solution for analyzing and understanding patient feedback.

According to a 2016 study by Accenture, excellent patient experience increases hospital revenue by 50%. NarrativeDx achieves these outcomes by partnering with healthcare organizations, patient experience and informatics leaders, and consultancies to identify key issues across departments and providers based on patient comments. These actionable insights inform human-centered solutions that improve care experiences, increase revenue, and boost referrals for a thriving healthcare system.

"We are using AI to improve healthcare experiences in a way that has never been done before," said Kyle Robertson, Founder and Chief Executive Officer, NarrativeDx. "Our partners have been eager to leverage our technology to better understand their patients' experiences. The demand we are seeing is phenomenal, and we are on track to increase our client base 10x in 2017."

The NarrativeDx AI platform analyzes comments at a per-phrase level and identifies sentiment, named doctors and nurses, key themes, procedures, and even readmission risks from complex patient comments. The technology is proven to improve patient experience measures by 80 percent, and increase outpatient referrals by over $50 million.

"NarrativeDx has built a one-of-a kind analytics engine for narrative patient experience data," said Senem Guney, PhD, Founder and Chief Experience Officer, NarrativeDx. "Our company was founded on the simple principle that patient voices matter, and by uncovering important insights from patients' own words about their experiences, we can make a meaningful improvement in the delivery of patient-centered care that brings value to the patient-consumer."

Founded in 2014 by AI engineer and IP lawyer, Kyle Robertson, JD, and Senem Guney, PhD, NarrativeDx has seen steady growth in patient experience, and the financing will further support the company as it continues to invest heavily in product innovation and improving the patient experience.

"With NarrativeDx, it's like having a data scientist on our team," said Bridget Alston, Director of Patient Experience at HackensackUMC Palisades, a NarrativeDX customer. "I have been able to shift from hours behind a desk collecting and analyzing comments to being out where I need to be with patients, staff and physicians. The NarrativeDx AI platform bridges the gap between quantitative data and qualitative data, and gives us actionable insights that we can prioritize and put into practice." 

"As a Seed Round investor, we are excited to follow-on our initial confidence in the NarrativeDx team by leading this Series A Round," said Ben Scott, General Partner of LiveOak Venture Partners. "With the best technical team in the industry, we strongly believe in their approach and are convinced that NarrativeDx has the ability to positively transform the patient experience and quickly boost hospital reputations."

"We are excited to work with NarrativeDx to see their innovative artificial intelligence technology reach its full potential," said Mark Bakken, Managing Partner of HealthX Ventures. "We see great opportunity with tools that can help hospitals manage and improve their most important relationships – those they have with their patients."

About NarrativeDx                                 
NarrativeDx, based in Austin, TX, is the artificial intelligence platform for patient experience. We help hospital leaders and care providers hear the voice of their patients. Our natural language processing and machine learning provides actionable insights from patient comments to improve their institution's patient experience, drive patient referrals, increase hospital revenue, and boost hospital reputations.

NarrativeDx's cloud-based, HIPAA-compliant, healthcare-specific AI platform uses Natural Language Processing and Machine Learning to collect, analyze, and visualizes unstructured patient feedback from internal and external sources (CAHPS Surveys, grievance letters, social review sites, etc.). Our beautiful, intuitive dashboards automatically highlight key areas for improvement (staff, doctors, units, facilities, etc.) and provide specific recommendations to improve patient experience. For additional information and a demonstration of how our technology helps our clients transform their patient experience, please visit www.narrativedx.com or call +1-512-900-7720. NarrativeDx participated in Dreamit Health 2014.

About LiveOak Venture Partners
LiveOak is a $109MM Fund based in Austin, TX and was founded by Ben Scott, Krishna Srinivasan, and Venu Shamapant (all formerly of Austin Ventures).  While many of LiveOak's investments begin in the early stages, LiveOak is a full lifecycle investor focused on technology and technology-driven service companies based in Texas. 

With over 16 years of successful early stage investing in Texas, the Founders of LiveOak have helped entrepreneurs create industry-leading companies, such as Spatial Wireless (acquired by Alcatel-Lucent), Navini Networks (acquired by Cisco Systems), LifeSize Technologies (acquired by Logitech), Mavenir Systems, and StackEngine (Acquired by Oracle).
Contact: info@liveoakvp.com 
Follow: @liveoakvp
Website: liveoakvp.com

About Cultivation Capital
Cultivation Capital is a venture capital firm supporting extraordinary entrepreneurs. We are a family of venture funds investing in technology, life sciences, and financial technology companies. These funds have backed over 38 companies since the firm's founding in 2012, making us one of the most active seed investors in the country. Cultivation Capital helps businesses achieve pivotal milestones with the help of our general partners, investors, and other portfolio companies. For more information, please visit www.cultivationcapital.com

About HealthX Ventures
HealthX Ventures is a digital healthcare-focused venture capital fund that supports early/seed stage, high-growth companies in all areas of digital health, including companies who are making healthcare safer, more efficient and more affordable. The firm is investing out of its flagship fund and is led by experienced entrepreneurs, investors, and industry experts who have grown companies and led change across the healthcare system. Learn more at www.healthxventures.com.

Contact: Ashley Conway
Director of Marketing
ashley@narrativedx.com 
+1-512-900-7720

HealthX Ventures closes flagship fund of more than $20 million

The firm also announces first five portfolio investments

MADISON, Wis. -- HealthX Ventures, a Wisconsin-based venture capital fund focused on investing in software businesses that solve cost, quality and access issues in the healthcare industry, announced today the final closing of its first fund (“HealthX Ventures Fund I, L.P.”). The fund, which was oversubscribed, achieved more than $20 million in capital commitments from leading limited partners across the U.S.

“We appreciate and are thankful for the support of our investors who see the potential that innovation can have in the healthcare industry,” said Mark Bakken, the firm’s founder and managing partner. “There are enormous opportunities for using technology to improve how healthcare is delivered and paid for. Our fund supports companies solving hard problems that will not only lower the cost of healthcare, but also improve the lives of clinicians, patients, and their families.”

HealthX Ventures has so far made five investments from the fund:

- Redox, a Madison-based company, helps software applications easily and securely interoperate with electronic health records (EHRs) by connecting to existing health system infrastructure (http://redoxengine.com/)

- EnsoData, another Madison company, provides machine learning enabled software-as-a-service to create actionable, clinical insights from the ever-growing amount of data being collected by medical devices and clinicians (http://www.ensodata.io/)

- Moving Analytics, a San Francisco-based company focused on digital solutions for patient rehab programs (https://www.movinganalytics.com/)

- HealthiPASS, a Chicago company, offers an innovative patient check-in and patient payments solution, delivering transparency in an opaque billing environment (https://healthipass.com/)

- Epharmix, a St. Louis company, helps clinicians care for and monitor the sickest 20 percent of their patient population through disease-specific interventions (https://www.epharmix.com)

HealthX Ventures, based near other fast-growing health technology companies and the University of Wisconsin-Madison, has expanded its investment team to five members, all of whom have unique investment and healthcare experience.

“Physicians, nurses, therapists, and other clinicians are experiencing enormous new pressures ranging from payment reform, changing regulations, and consumerism of healthcare,” said Dr. Frank Byrne, HealthX Ventures Senior Executive Advisor and former head of two hospitals. “The industry is more and more accepting of technology tools that make the day-to-day lives of caregivers better, make their work more fulfilling, and improve their ability to meet the needs of the people they are dedicated to serving.”

HealthX Ventures is actively investing out of the fund. The firm targets companies that are early in their life cycle and typically participates in the first rounds of funding. Entrepreneurs can expect active support from the HealthX Ventures team, including assistance in product development, go-to market strategy and connections across the healthcare industry.

Bakken, a serial entrepreneur who previously founded Nordic, the world’s largest Epic consulting firm, said a support structure, including capital partners, is important to the growth and success of companies in health technology.

“We’re seeing hundreds of investment opportunities and hearing from providers of their pressing need for solutions to address their ongoing care challenges,” Bakken said. “HealthX Ventures can help connect those networks and hopes to bring value to the future of healthcare.”

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About HealthX Ventures

HealthX Ventures (http://www.healthxventures.com) is a digital healthcare-focused venture capital fund based in Madison, Wisconsin. HealthX Ventures supports early/seed stage, high-growth companies in all areas of digital health, including companies who are making healthcare safer, more efficient and more affordable. The firm is investing out of its flagship fund, and is led by experienced entrepreneurs, investors, and industry experts who have grown companies and led change across the healthcare system.