Consumer electronics producer Samsung and insurance firm Axa have exited UK-based digital wellness app developer BioBeats in an acquisition of undisclosed size by health technology and services provider Huma.

Huma announced the deal alongside its purchase of Tarilian Laser Technologies, a producer of non-invasive blood pressure monitors, and its rebranding from Medopad.

Founded in 2012 as a spinout of University of Surrey, Biobeats has built a personal wellness app called BioBase that can be paired with wearable devices to monitor mental health-related biometric and psychometric markers such as heart rate.

The company had raised a total of $6.3m, most recently closing a $3.1m round in 2018 co-led by university venture fund Oxford Sciences Innovation, White Cloud Capital and IQ Capital.

White Cloud Capital had previously led a $2.3m round for Biobeats in 2016, investing with IQ Capital and Axa subsidiary Axa Venture Partners.

The company’s investors also included Samsung Next, a corporate venturing vehicle for Samsung, as well as record label Cantora, Italian Angels for Growth, Eniac Ventures, ZhenFund, Luminous Ventures and Zynik Capital.

Biobeats, a UK-based digital wellness technology company leveraging University of Surrey research, has been acquired by health technology and services provider Huma for an undisclosed sum.
Huma was known as Medopad prior to the announcement. It has also purchased Tarilian Laser Technologies, a supplier of non-invasive blood pressure monitors.
Founded in 2012, Biobeats has built a personal wellness app called BioBase that can be paired with wearable devices to monitor mental health-related biometric and psychometric markers such as heart rate.
BioBase is marketed to employers who offer the service to their employees as part of a company wellness package. It also recommends wellness treatments such as meditation and digital therapeutic programs.
Huma started out providing telemedicine-based monitoring for rare and chronic diseases but has since diversified to offer more remote health and wellness products. It will use the acquisitions to increase the number of digital biomarkers underpinning its services.
Biobeats closed a $3m round in 2018 co-led by University of Oxford’s venture fund Oxford Sciences Innovation, IQ Capital and White Cloud Capital. White Star’s shares appear to have since been taken over by Luminous Ventures as part of the latter’s spinout from the growth fund in late 2018.
Axa Venture Partners, the corporate venturing unit of insurance provider Axa, backed a $2.3m round in 2016 that was led by White Star Capital and also featured IQ Capital.
Biobeats also secured an undisclosed sum from Italian Angels for Growth in October 2014, after disclosing $300,000 from unnamed investors that July, according to a regulatory filing.
The company secured $650,000 in a 2013 seed round backed by record label Cantora Records, Eniac Ventures, Zhen Fund and assorted private investors.
Zynik Capital and Samsung Next, an investment arm of consumer electronics group Samsung, also lists BioBeats as portfolio companies, though it is not clear when they invested.
Biobeats’s co-founders include chief science officer David Plans, then a lecturer in entrepreneurship and innovation at University of Surrey, and Davide Morelli, a former research fellow at the university.
The pair had agreed to commence doctoral work at University of Oxford following OSI’s investment to further validate their technology, but Plans instead moved to University of Exeter and Morelli joined IULM University as an adviser in its innovation lab.