Cureatr’s $5.7M funding helps keeps doctors’ group messaging — and your private medical information — safe (exclusive)

Cureatr has just nabbed $5.7 million in financing, a sizable first round for a health technology startup.

The New York-based startup provides a secure group messaging solution for doctors, which is fully HIPAA compliant, meaning it protects the privacy of patient’s most sensitive health information. Cureatr’s technology syncs with physicians’ devices, including mobile devices and pagers, and integrates with existing scheduling software, and health directories.

The software is designed with ease of use in mind — for doctors, the experience is similar to standard SMS messaging.

Cureatr’s team believe they are solving a huge problem with their mobile tools, as an estimated 50 percent of preventable medical errors are caused by poor communication between physicians.

Above: Cureatr offers iPhone and Android applications.

The company was started by a doctor-turned-entrepreneur Joseph Mayer, who is currently on leave from his residency at The Mount Sinai Medical Center in New York.

Inspiration struck when Mayer was working as a doctor at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York City — he realized that doctors needed a patient-centric, secure messaging system. He built out the minimum viable product — and got results almost immediately.

“I expected that 30 doctors would sign on if we were lucky — we got 100,” said Mayer by phone. “We were selling our product from day one.”

Current customers include Davita HealthCare Partners, The Mount Sinai Medical Center, The New York Eye and Ear Infirmary, and Albany Medical Center.

Aside from raising funding, Mayer has recruited an impressive team, which also includes Alex Khomenko, an early engineer at genetic testing company 23andme and PayPal. The company recently enrolled in New York’s competitive Digital Health Accelerator, which is supported by The New York eHealth Collaborative (NYeC), among other organizations.

But Cureatr does face a competitive market, with players like enterprise communications giants Vocera in the running. Mayer doesn’t believe he’ll run up against the major electronic health record players, like AllScripts and Epic, as these vendors aren’t traditionally strong on mobile.

The startup raised its funding today from Cardinal Partners and Milestone Venture Partners with JMI Services, LLC and the Partnership Fund for New York City participating. Brandon H. Hull, Cardinal Partner’s managing partner; and Todd Pietri, Milestone Venture Partner’s general partner and cofounder, will both join the board of directors.