Telehealth platform Cloudbreak Health, whose offerings include its proprietary Martti system for remote interpreting, announced on February 20, 2020 that it had raised USD 10m from investment firm Columbia Partners Private Capital.
Cloudbreak told Slator that the investment bank Bridge Bank facilitated the deal and introduced the two parties. Columbia now has a minority stake in Cloudbreak, and Columbia’s Saul Waller will join Cloudbreak’s board as an observer. (Cloudbreak declined to name other individual shareholders.)
“Through the deal, we will add resources to our interpreter network and expand our technical team to support innovation in the next phase of scalability, product development and interoperability,” Cloudbreak said.
According to Cloudbreak, its technology is currently used in over 1,000 healthcare venues for over 90,000 encounters each month. The company told Slator that “the platform has provided more than 26 million minutes of medical interpretation to upwards of two million patients. Nearly 250 languages (including American Sign Language) are offered, with roughly 50 languages available in live video.”
Slator 2019 US Healthcare Interpreting Report
The company works with hundreds of interpreters, including independent contractors and certified medical interpreters who are employees. In addition to expanding the company’s IT, sales, and customer service teams, Cloudbreak plans to use some of the funding from Columbia to support clients’ requests for languages of lesser diffusion.
Cloudbreak’s current CEO, Jamey Edwards, and COO, Andy Panos, founded the company in 2015. For Edwards, a serial entrepreneur, the company is one in a line of projects he has founded or cofounded in the hospital management, physician outsourcing, and telemedicine space.
Slator 2019 Life Sciences Translation Report
Looking ahead, Cloudbreak sees potential for both consolidation and innovation in healthcare interpreting, telling Slator, “The best VRI solution will be the one that successfully marries the human elements of interpretation with the promise and support of the latest video / audio technology.”
VRI in the US healthcare space was at the center of one of the language industry’s biggest M&A transactions ever, US conglomerate AMN’s acquisition of Stratus Video in early February 2020.
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