Vera Health has raised $28.5 million in a Series A to expand its clinical search platform, as the company reports wider physician use.
Threshold Ventures led the round, Vera said, while Mantis VC and SV Angel also took part. Existing investors Y Combinator and Gradient increased their investments. The company said the financing brings its stated total funding to $32 million, though it did not announce a valuation. Vera says its team has 12 employees.
The company reports more than 800,000 clinician users across 190 countries. It estimates that about one in four physicians use the service in Spain and Italy, and one in seven in France.
In a July 16 update, Vera reported more than 400,000 clinicians worldwide, with estimates of one in seven practicing doctors in Spain and one in nine in Italy.
Vera says its service searches more than 60 million peer-reviewed publications, along with clinical guidelines, consensus statements and drug labels. The company says its results surface supporting research and use color cues to communicate the strength of the evidence.
An agreement with the American College of Emergency Physicians (ACEP), announced March 3, brings the college’s emergency medicine guidance into Vera responses, with ACEP identified as the source. ACEP President L. Anthony Cirillo said the partnership would put its resources “within reach when they are needed most.”
The company says it plans to use the new capital to develop its clinical evidence infrastructure, expand into additional health care markets and build partnerships with medical societies, publishers and health systems. Vera says licensed clinicians and medical trainees worldwide will continue to have free access.
Vera’s financing announcement cited an estimate that medical knowledge takes 17 years to become routine practice. A 2011 review in the Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine said estimates vary because studies track different stages between research and clinical use, and that the available evidence is sparse.
