Filament Labs

Filament Labs is an Austin, Texas healthcare software company founded in March 2013. Its flagship product, Patient IO, is a care plan delivery and patient engagement platform that lets health professionals build fully customizable, personalized care plans and deliver them to patients outside the clinic. Patients, family members and caregivers receive treatment-specific tasks, reminders and educational content on their smartphones, and the platform synthesizes care plans from multiple providers into a unified set of daily tasks.

On the provider side, a web dashboard lets clinicians track an entire patient population, review submitted health information in real time, and receive user-configurable alerts when patients deviate from their care plans so attention can be focused on higher-risk patients. The company positions the product around adherence to complex treatment regimens and the tracking of patient health behaviors between visits. Patient IO exposes a full set of APIs intended to make it integrate with existing care management software, electronic health record systems and population health programs, an architectural decision the founders described as strategic given that clinicians do not want an additional standalone dashboard. Following the 2014 seed round, the company said it would extend the platform with mobile-web and email touch points to reach patients without smartphones.

Founding story

Filament Labs was founded in March 2013 by CEO Jason Bornhorst, previously #2 and director of product management at mobile travel app maker Mobiata, which was acquired by Expedia in 2010; Chief Product Officer (later described as CSO) Colin Anawaty, who created the Plerts emergency service that was acquired by Rev Worldwide in 2010 and who previously worked on mobile financial products and mobile entertainment apps; and CTO Brian Gambs, whose background includes HealthShare and WebMD and an earlier company sold to SunGard Data Systems. They were joined by Head of Mobile Sebastian Celis, a former Mobiata and Expedia iOS lead. The founders' first product was a health and wellness app built with Aetna within four months, following a relationship begun at a 2012 SXSW panel; the company later pivoted to Patient IO.

Business model

Filament Labs sells Patient IO as a SaaS patient engagement platform to healthcare providers and provider organizations. The product is offered with a full set of APIs so it can be embedded in existing care management software, electronic health records and population health programs rather than sold only as a standalone dashboard. Distribution partners such as athenahealth provide access to large provider networks, and early customers including Corinthian Health Services and Arcadia Home Care & Staffing both deployed the platform and invested in the company.

Software-as-a-service subscription platform sold to healthcare providers, with API access enabling integration into third-party care management, EHR and population health systems.

Traction

Patient IO had been deployed to approximately 4,000 patients as of April 1, 2014, with another 4,000 planned for June 2014, and was live across Corinthian Health Services' 20 clinics. By the time of the athenahealth investment the platform was deployed at 27 clinical sites and the team had grown to 11 people, most of them developers. Gust listed 5 employees and a "Full Product Ready" stage.

Latest developments

Filament Labs joined athenahealth's More Disruption Please accelerator, receiving a $3.32 million investment from athenahealth along with mentorship and office space, and agreeing to integrate Patient IO with athenaNet to serve athenahealth's patient engagement, chronic care management and population health needs. At that point Patient IO was deployed at 27 clinical sites and the team numbered 11 people.