Popit Raises €1.2M Seed Financing To Quantify Medication
Butterfly Ventures as the lead investor, funding used for bringing product to market
Helsinki, Finland, August 23rd 2017 – Popit, a Finnish startup focusing on medical technology solutions, has raised over €1.2M ($1.4M) in seed financing. The capital was raised from Butterfly Ventures with participation from six private investors and Business Finland, the Finnish Funding Agency for Innovation. The funding consists of an investment and a loan, and will be used for bringing the pioneering device Popit Sense to market.
Popit Sense
Popit Sense tackles medical adherence, a problem that needlessly burdens the healthcare system and leads to lives lost. The small easy-to-use device attaches to a regular pill sheet where it automatically detects with patented technology when a pill has been popped. This information is sent onto a free app that supports the treatment by tracking medication effectiveness, remaining pills and medication usage patterns. It also reminds the user or a loved one if a pill has been forgotten.
Teemu Piirainen, Popit’s CEO: “The investment will enable us to pursue our vision of quantifying medication. Like step counters track activity, we track pills and support the patient in staying on track with medical treatment. This kind of technology hasn’t been available before and it opens up exciting new possibilities. For example, caregivers to their parents will be able to see from the mobile phone if mom or dad has taken the medication. Likewise, patients will be able to see how taking medication has had an impact on wellbeing.”
Juho Risku, co-founder and partner at Butterfly Ventures explains why they invested in Popit: “The cost impact of patients not taking pills that come in blister packs is well over 100 billion dollars annually. Vast majority of these costs could be avoided by improving medication adherence. Popit’s product tackles the problem in an intuitive way. The team has done excellent and systematic work in unraveling this complex issue and I firmly believe Popit is going to take a significant share of the adherence market.
The solution will be first available for the 100 million birth control pill users. For this purpose Popit is preparing to launch a crowdfunding campaign in November. The company also sees tremendous untapped opportunity in supporting patients on chronic disease medications, where a staggering 50% of patients are not taking their medications as prescribed.
The smart pill reminder solution will be available in Q2 2018.
About Popit:
Popit is a pioneer in improving patient adherence through smart consumer devices. The Company is dedicated to improving adherence by digitizing medicine, a major opportunity that offers benefits for pharmaceutical companies and consumers alike. Popit is planning to expand support to other major medication groups like hypertension, cholesterol, type 2 diabetes and migraine pills, which combined have an addressable market of over 1 billion users. For more information like videos and product images, please visit popit.io.
Media contact: Teemu Piirainen, CEO
Phone: +358 44 222 6666
Email: teemu ät popit.io
Web: popit.io
Twitter: https://twitter.com/popitmed
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/popitmed
Youtube: Popit Smart Pill Reminder
