Funding Roundup: Health-Care Analytics Startup QualMetrix Raises Series A

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In addition to QualMetrix’s announcement, network monitoring startup Sideband Networks also announced a Series A this week. Here’s a look at some of the startups that raised funding.

QualMetrix

Health-care analytics startup QualMetrix raised a Series A round, bringing total funding close to $2 million.

“We’re a high performance analytics company for health care,” says CEO Adam House, Sr. “Our typical customers are Blue Cross Blue Shield, Humana … and we’re working directly with CFOs to help them reduce costs and improve quality.”

QualMetrix launched its service in 2013 and now has offices in Miami, Boston and Washington, D.C.

House says the company has already made one acquisition and will potentially acquire other related companies in the future to expand its offerings.

“The acquisition of [Visual Intelligence] accelerated development by close to two years,” says House. He says that future acquisitions would require QualMetrix to raise further capital.

PlaceIQ

Local mobile advertising platform PlaceIQ raised a $15 million Series C round this week.

The four-year-old New York City startup has broken the U.S. into 1 billion “tiles” the size of a city block, which it analyzes based on points of interest, activities, Census data and stores, among other pieces of information, says CEO Duncan McCall. PlaceIQ then uses this data to help companies target consumers with hyper-specific mobile ads.

This year, PlaceIQ will likely double its 100-person team, says McCall, as it looks to acquire more customers.

iSocket

Los Angeles-based advertising automation startup iSocket announced a $5 million round of funding led by Time Warner Investments with participation by Conde Nast, among others.

iSocket automates the display, mobile and video ads that are usually sold directly by advertisers to media companies.

“We work with three sets  of customers: The world’s largest household name media companies, like Conde Nast and Time Warner Cable; agency-holding companies and brands, and then the tech companies that provide services to those sets of customers,” says Chief Revenue Officer Ben Trenda.

Trenda says iSocket will be “very aggressively” adding head count. There are currently 30 people between iSocket’s L.A. headquarters and office in New York City.

Sideband Networks

Network monitoring startup Sideband Networks announced a $6 million Series A round this week.

“Network performance monitoring and analytics continues to become a priority for many companies,” said Sideband CEO Zane Taylor in a statement released by the company.  “Our ability to meet that need with the industry’s first unified solution that delivers an unprecedented network view in real time has generated a groundswell of interest from customers, media and investors alike. With this round of funding, we will continue to grow our solution with more features and capabilities, maintaining our vision of bringing true predictive intelligence to our customers.”

The two-year-old startup, based in Sunnyvale, Calif. currently has 21 employees, according to Taylor.

Taylor says the 21-person-team will likely double in the next year, as the company hires both high-level employees and less-experienced staffers.

Sideband Networks’ product is still in beta testing and will soon be made available to a general audience, says Taylor.

Tapiture

Entertainment and e-commerce site Tapiture announced this week it has raised $2.25 million in seed funding. The site features aspirational and inspirational content collected from around the web (a la Pinterest) alongside products that can be purchased straight from Tapiture’s website.

CEO John Ellis says the site has a strong male audience in the 25- to 34-year-old age range.

“Our split is 75% men and 25% women,” says Ellis.  “We think of them as urban up-and-comers.”

So far, Ellis says Tapiture’s growth has been primarily organic. This year, Tapiture will focus on spreading the word about the site and adding merchants to the platform.

“Unlike a lot of startups, we’re actually generating revenue,” says Ellis. He says that within a year, Tapiture was seeing sales in the seven-figure range.

Oorja

Liquid fuel cell startup Oorja raised a Series E round for an undisclosed sum. The Fremont, Calif.-based startup manufactures methanol-based fuel cells for use in material handling and telecom infrastructure, among other purposes.

CEO Dr. Sanjiv Malhotra says he will likely double the 25-person team this year.

Even as the team grows, though, the focus will be on reducing costs.