Deal Details
Startup: Elemeno Health
Security type: Crowd SAFE
Discount: 0%
Valuation (cap): $12 million
Minimum investment: $100
Where to invest: Republic
Deadline: September 16, 2020
View Elemeno Health’s latest 2024 funding round analysis on Kingscrowd here.
Timing is everything — especially in investing. And the startup I’m recommending you invest in today has perfect timing.
The influx of COVID-19 cases sweeping the country has overwhelmed many of our hospitals. Frontline doctors and nurses are working hard to save lives.
But we must still ask more from them because this pandemic isn’t going away anytime soon. The World Health Organization recently warned that it could take up to 5 years before things go back to “normal.” Even hospitals in areas of the country where the novel coronavirus hasn’t yet hit with full force know that it’s only a matter of time.
Many hospitals are barely hanging on. And no wonder. The vast majority are underfunded, underequipped and undermanned.
And with the flu and a second major COVID-19 wave expected to hit us in the fall, hospitals will remain under siege for some time to come.
It’s a nightmare. Frontline doctors and nurses can barely cope with surging workloads. Time management has literally become a matter of life and death. They need help. And they need it now.
There’s no silver bullet here. But a three-year old startup, Elemeno Health, is providing a big — and critical — piece of the puzzle.
Using Elemeno’s cloud-based library of best practices, videos, bite-sized advice and checklists, nurses and doctors can consult its mobile-friendly app to help make the right decision… from patient to patient and moment to moment.
Elemeno calls their product “a personal assistant for doctors and nurses.”
It’s exactly what hospitals need right now. It’s one of the only ways to get the latest COVID-19 treatment information in the hands of first responders. But the idea behind Elemeno was hatched several years before COVID-19 reached our shores…
It was a difficult time for Ed Nanale. Two family members were diagnosed with cancer. Both had long stays at a number of hospitals before succumbing to the awful disease.
The hospitals did the best they could. But Ed couldn’t help but notice how much the level of care varied from hospital to hospital… How the nurses and doctors didn’t always speak with one voice… And how uneven coordination was between teams of caregivers and even within teams.
Ed was shocked. Then frustrated. Operationally, hospitals were stuck in the 1980s. They used a hodgepodge system of binders, fliers, bloated reports, group emails and staff meetings.
And he wondered if that was the best hospitals could do.
Then he met Dr. Arup Roy-Burman at a UCSF (University of California San Francisco) Startup 101 program. Arup was presenting his idea on how to promote teamwork and communication at hospitals through a suite of cloud-based tools. Ed understood Arup’s mission right away.
Together, they founded Elemeno.
Arup knew the inner workings of hospitals – including their multitude of inefficiencies and dysfunctions – from two decades of working in intensive care units. He knew the tools hospitals needed.
Ed knew how to make those tools. He had spent the last 20 years developing games for Electronic Arts and other game development companies.
Together, Arup and Ed developed, tested and refined the tools they thought hospitals needed the most.
And now they’ve made them available to 15 hospitals and post-acute care clinics across the country. Six more hospitals are signed up and ready to onboard. Fifty more are in the pipeline.
All of Elemeno’s clients have the same goal of saving lives and money. Elemeno’s success will depend on just how effective its “assistant” is for the doctors and nurses who use it.
And so far, it’s working well. Here’s some of what Elemeno’s clients are saying …
“With this new app, our frontline staff has immediate access to recommended practices to safely care for patients who may have COVID-19. It has improved rapid communication and training for our frontline teams” — Kelly Mather, CEO, Sonoma Valley Hospital
“Elemeno has been absolutely critical to our ED [emergency department] response” — Dr. Jeanne Noble, ED Director of Disaster Preparedness, UCSF
“A quick and easy way… to provide the safest care to our patients” — C. Hansen, Neonatal ICU Nurse
“We are LOVING Elemeno… transformative… the source of truth at UCSF in the rapidly changing environment of COVID-19. ” — M. Raven, Chief, Emergency Dept.
That’s what Elemeno’s clients are saying. And what Elemeno’s clients are doing backs up the stellar testimonials.
Everybody that has signed up so far has extended or expanded their contract. EVERYBODY. Even in a small sample size, that’s pretty impressive.
And it’s a strong sign that Elemeno is on the right track. That its products work. That hospitals are saving lives and patients are getting better care because doctors and nurses are making consistently good decisions. Decisions that are based on the latest institutional knowledge and best practices.
And because Elemeno now knows its product can make a difference in the fight against COVID-19, its COVID-19 treatment and information tools are now available to any hospital that wants them through a freemium rapid onboarding plan. It can be used in any facility and run on any device — without involving an in-house IT unit. Deployment takes as little as three hours.
Elemeno’s full deployment options fit any budget. It can be used in a single hospital department ($25,000)… A few departments ($25,000 to $125,000)… Or in the entire hospital ($150,000 to $200,000).
So the price shouldn’t impede sales. And the product need is massive and immediate. But what about scalability?
Accumulating training and best practices content usually takes time. And gamifying the feedback (who does best in performing certain tasks) can take even more time.
In Elemeno’s case, simple content is generated by the user (think a standard checklist). That’s how most of Elemeno’s COVID-19 content was generated. Doctors and nurses electronically sharing the best ways to treat patients. Last year Elemeno had nothing about COVID-19 in its database. Now, it has a lot (and it wants to share as much of it as possible).
The more sophisticated content is generated directly by Elemeno (think raw video footage turned into a training video). It takes anywhere from one day to a week to produce that content.
Elemeno plans to hire a content production associate for every 15 new clients it acquires. Later on, one content person will handle 25 new clients as more complex content becomes available to share. That scaling sounds about right to me.
COVID-19 won’t last forever. After it’s over, Elemeno plans to move into the $240 million pediatric hospital market. Then, there’s the $468 million skilled nursing facilities (that patients often do after their hospital stay). And the fast-growing $372 million home health space also awaits. Elemeno has made just under $1 million to date and thinks it can hit $8.3 million in annual revenue by 2022.
This investment opportunity is as solid as they come. Elemeno’s markets are big and growing. It addresses huge gaps in the nation’s dysfunctional healthcare system. The co-founders are deeply experienced. The company graduated from Y Combinator. And well-known Venture Capital company Launchpad Digital Health is a major investor.
Makes sense to me. No other company is doing what they’re doing.
Even without COVID-19, doctors and nurses need Elemeno’s tools. This crisis just made the need painfully obvious.
Succeeding in a pandemic environment requires a delicate balance between rapid growth and smart growth. I believe Arup and Ed are up to that challenge. An investment in Elemeno should benefit both the country and investors immensely.
What more can you ask from an investment?
How to Invest
Elemeno Health is raising up to $1.07 million on Republic. If you don’t already have a Republic account, you can sign up for one here.
Once you verify your account and are logged in to Republic, visit the Elemeno deal page.
Then click the blue “Invest in Elemeno Health” button. Enter the amount you want to invest, starting as low as $100, and proceed through the required steps. Be sure your investment is confirmed, then you’re good to go.
Risks
This opportunity, like all early-stage investments, is risky. Early-stage investments often fail. Elemeno might need to raise another round of funding in a year or two, if not sooner.
If it executes well, this shouldn’t be a problem. But that’s a risk worth considering when investing in early-stage companies. The investment you’re making is NOT liquid.
Expect to hold your position for five to 10 years. An earlier exit is always possible but should not be expected.
All that said, I believe Elemeno offers an attractive risk-reward ratio.