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ASHEVILLE, NC (October 25, 2021) – Pisgah Fund announced today its first investment in GoCheck, creator of GoCheck Kids, the leading digital vision screening platform protecting children from vision impairment and blindness. With this investment, GoCheck will open an Operations Support Center and build out a team in Western North Carolina to support its growing platform and customer partnerships both in the U.S. and globally.
6,500 pediatric teams on three continents trust GoCheck Kids to prevent vision impairment and blindness in children. These hospitals, private practices, schools, and screening organizations have screened 5 million patients.
“The research is clear, so much in a child’s life is transformed when they can see well — their confidence, relationships, learning, and eventual educational and financial outcomes,” said Kevon Saber, GoCheck’s CEO. “We are striving for a future where everyone everywhere can see and fulfill their potential and children, parents, and providers are no longer in the dark. This financing is a step toward this brighter future and a testament to both the massive unmet need for pediatric vision screening and the resolve of GoCheck’s teammates.”
Vision impairment is the most prevalent disabling childhood condition. GoCheck Kids has increased health equity and access by expanding the points of vision screening. GoCheck Kids is the only integrated vision screening solution that meets the American Academy of Pediatrics and other medical societies’ guidelines for patients 1 through 18 years old. GoCheck Kids’ comprehensive digital vision screening platform enables the most extensive ROI for providers.
GoCheck Kids is already being used by pediatricians in Western North Carolina with further opportunity for expansion in the region. “Prior to GoCheck Kids’ vision screenings, children would go years without the eye support they needed and others would actually have permanent loss of vision,” said Dr. Lauretta Stombaugh, Pediatrician with Hendersonville Pediatrics.
Pisgah Fund and Hatteras Venture Partners co-led the round, with new investors CU Healthcare Innovation Fund (affiliated with the University of Colorado) and WakeMed Hospitals Innovation Venture Fund, and existing investors Marc Benioff (Founder/CEO of Salesforce), Interwest Partners, FCA Venture Partners, Sovereign’s Capital, and Mucker Capital participating.
“We are thrilled to be making our first Pisgah Fund investment in a company making a difference in the lives of children both in our region and globally,” said Lauren Pierce Flickinger, Fund Manager for the Pisgah Fund. “We believe GoCheck’s team has the potential to revolutionize vision care in America and the rest of the world by accelerating access and equity, and also lowering health care costs.”
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About GoCheck
GoCheck, a digital health company and creator of GoCheck Kids, serves pediatric teams in their quest to prevent vision impairment, the most prevalent disabling condition among children in the U.S. and many countries. GoCheck Kids is the leading digital vision screening platform for children. Vision diseases usually lead to compromised learning, blindness, or death. GoCheck Kids made early screening affordable, reducing the cost by over 50% by leveraging the iPhone’s advanced technologies such as CoreML and its manufacturing scale. It’s also FDA-registered and CE-certified.
About Pisgah Fund
Pisgah Fund is a $50 million venture fund investing in healthcare-related companies in Western North Carolina’s 18-county region or locating operations in the region. The Fund focuses on high growth opportunities seeking early-stage VC investment that will create jobs in Western North Carolina. The Fund is managed by Hatteras Venture Partners and was created with investments from the Dogwood Health Trust and HCA Healthcare Mission Fund.
About Hatteras Venture Partners
Hatteras Venture Partners is a venture capital firm based in Research Triangle Park, NC with a focus on seed and early-stage opportunities in biopharmaceuticals, medical devices, diagnostics, healthcare IT, and related opportunities in human medicine. The firm has over $700 million under management in six venture capital funds. Hatteras is led by a seasoned team of entrepreneurs and operators and has a long and successful track record of seed and early stage investing and company formation.
GoCheck Kids’ (GoCheck) vision is to help children see their potential and their future. GoCheck is a comprehensive vision screening solution that addresses the leading causes of vision loss in children. As a revolutionary pediatric vision screening platform delivered via a smartphone, GoCheck performs real-time analysis on photos of the child’s eyes leveraging artificial intelligence (AI).
Ilumivu provides healthcare decision support and pre-diagnostic applications using the psychology of behavior change combined with real-time data from smartphones and wearables. With a pedigree in research in multiple disease areas at over 100 leading research universities and health systems, Ilumivu delivers just-in-time adaptive interventions based on individualized baselines to improve measurable patient care outcomes. Ilumivu’s Cardiogram mobile software is a leading cardiovascular health app having been downloaded by over 3.7 million users.
Configo Health Inc. is a healthcare data and analytics company, focused exclusively on pediatrics, that helps children’s hospitals and their teams make better decisions through the use of timely, trusted and actionable insight. Through its OPUS benchmarking platform, Configo currently serves Quality & Safety, Equity and Surgery departments and their respective clinical and administrative stakeholders.
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