Health Scholars Bags $17M in Series B

Health Scholars, known for their VR simulations and cloud-based training platform utilized for management, delivery, and analysis of clinical training, is excited to announce the successful completion of a $17M round of fundraising with investments from Arboretum Ventures, Venture Investors, Capital Midwest Fund, OSF HealthCare, as well as key family office seed funders.

The new investment round will enable Health Scholars to continue to introduce and expand new virtual technologies in both the Hospital and Public Safety market allowing for greater accessibility, scalability and immersion at up 80% less cost than traditional simulation training methods.

Specifically, the company will use funding to expand their VR content library, further develop the virtual learning platform to facilitate enterprise scale deployments and analytics, grow the go-to-market resources and strengthen their IP base.

"Closing our Series B financing is a huge vote of confidence from both the market and investor community of Health Scholars' strategy and value, says Cole Sandau, Chief Executive Officer at Health Scholars. "Having $17M in new capital to expand our focus on patient safety and quality issues will provide our customers with truly transformative training and virtual simulation technologies that will drive improved patient outcomes," he continues.

"It has been challenging and expensive for hospitals to maintain systemwide readiness for high risk infrequent events that require rapid response. The Health Scholars team brings deep domain knowledge of these educational requirements and the unique capabilities of virtual reality for addressing this problem. They improve access and provide immersive training, resulting in increased retention, lower costs, and better outcomes." – John Neis, Managing Director, Venture Investors LLC

"We are always looking for partners who share our vision of transforming health care to improve the lives of those we serve. With Health Scholars we've discovered a team as passionate about improving patient safety as we are, have a deep understanding of how patient outcomes are impacted by training, and have developed a viable, smart VR platform to advance clinical training, performance insights, and clinical behaviors." Robert C. Sehring, Chief Executive Officer, OSF HealthCare

"While healthcare provider education has evolved in the last two decades, improving healthcare outcomes requires a transformative technology platform that can readily scale to meet with the needs of large groups of providers. Health Scholars provides the transformative platform and Arboretum Ventures is very pleased to participate in this investment round." Dr. Tom Shehab, Managing Director, Arboretum Ventures

"We have spent a lot of time looking at XR technologies across a number of industries. Health Scholars stands out as having developed a practical suite of products for healthcare, enabling it to deliver the type of solution that the VR industry has promised for years." Alvin Vitangcol, General Partner, Capital Midwest Fund

Health Scholars' mission is to advance healthcare education through virtualization, making experience-based training scalable, accessible and affordable to both Healthcare and Public Safety providers. Health Scholars is a cloud-based, VR-ready clinical training platform with VR Simulations, Simulation Management, and Clinical Readiness Reporting solutions for the management, delivery and analysis of clinical training. Their VR simulations extend physical simulation beyond the simulation center, enabling repeatable practice of proper workflows as well as critical soft skills like communications, situational awareness and critical thinking.

About the Investors

Arboretum Ventures is a venture capital firm specializing in the healthcare sector. Founded in 2002 and headquartered in Ann Arbor, Michigan, they have raised $700 million in capital to support a portfolio that is diverse in stage and geography. They invest in companies that improve patient outcomes and reduce healthcare system costs across medical devices, life science tools & diagnostics, and tech-enabled care delivery.

Venture Investors seeks the next big things in healthcare. Based in the Midwest with open access to renowned research universities, and the vibrant communities that surround them, they target, uncover, and invest in extraordinary ideas that will shape the future of health and wellness. They hold over $200 million in investments.

Capital Midwest Fund (CMF) invests in revenue-stage Central United States companies providing customer-centric, problem-solving, business-to-business technology solutions, including software, services, and products, with specific emphasis on industrial, manufacturing, and healthcare markets. CMF focuses on companies where management: (1) has a fundamental understanding of trending technology themes; (2) has applied that understanding to solve specific customer problems; and (3) has shown traction in garnering market acceptance.

OSF HealthCare is an integrated health system in Peoria, Illinois consisting of 13 acute care facilities and two colleges of nursing. OSF HealthCare is home to both the Jump Trading Simulation Center and OSF Ventures.