Sonde Health, a Boston-based digital medicine company developing a vocal biomarker device to transform the way we monitor and diagnose our mental and physical health has raised $16 million in Series A funding. The round was led by M Ventures (the corporate venture capital arm of Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany), with participation from MP Healthcare Venture Management, Inc. (the corporate venture capital arm of Mitsubishi Tanabe Pharma Corporation), Neoteny 4, LP, Canepa Healthcare, and founder PureTech Health. The Series A round includes issuance of $6 million in shares upon conversion of debt into equity.
Sonde Health’s Vocal Biomarker to Monitor and Diagnose Mental and Physical Health
Co-founded by PureTech Health, Sonde Health is developing a voice-based technology platform to monitor and diagnose psychological and physical medical conditions. Sonde’s proprietary technology is designed to enable a range of consumer devices, such as smartphones and smart speakers, to provide disease screening and management solutions based on acoustic analysis of seconds of voice.
Sonde is working to create seamless universal access to accurate and timely health information, which has the potential to promote wellness and improve the timing and selection of a range of therapeutic interventions. This approach may enable the prevention and treatment of conditions ranging from depression and respiratory diseases to chronic diseases of aging.
Traction/Milestones
To date, Sonde has collected voice and health data from over 10,000 subjects as part of the ongoing validation of its platform. These research and development data and activities are being accelerated to expand its proprietary technology into neurological, respiratory, and cardiovascular diseases as well as other health and wellness conditions. Sonde’s vocal biomarker program has demonstrated the potential to effectively screen and monitor for disease using information obtained from an individual’s voice on commonly-owned devices and it has the potential to fundamentally change the way mental and physical health is monitored and diagnosed.
Future Plans for Sonde
Sonde plans to use the proceeds from the Series A funding round to expand its capability across multiple health conditions and device types and to fund commercialization activities. “One of the oldest tools in our health care arsenal, the thermometer, is arguably still one of the most valuable because of its simplicity and widespread availability outside the clinical setting. Our longstanding vision has been to harness the health information present in billions of daily voice interactions to create a 21st century thermometer, or ‘vocometer’, that provides broad digital healthcare decision support needed to enable new models of precision and preventative medicine,” said Jim Harper, co-founder and chief operating officer of Sonde Health. “This financing round and the support of our new long-term partners allows us to accelerate the development of this groundbreaking technology and help deliver the positive impact it can have on an individual’s health and the healthcare system.”
