Google recently acquired health technology startup Senosis Health, sources with knowledge of the matter said earlier this month. No financial details of the deal have been provided by the insiders, though the Mountain View, California-based tech giant reportedly negotiated the purchase while the company was in the middle of a series A round of funding from various venture capital investors in the United States, indicating that Google may have moved quickly in an effort to avoid an official valuation of Senosis Health that would have likely required it to pay even more than it did for the startup. Prior to its acquisition, the company operated solely on funds raised through the federal Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) which are said to be in the excess of $1 million.
The Seattle, Washington-based firm was co-founded by Shwetak Patel, a well-known computer scientist who previously established energy-sensing startup Zensi which he sold to Belking International in 2010 when he was only 28. Senosis Health’s work force was in the low double digits when Google acquired the company, though it’s currently unclear whether all of its engineers were offered positions at Alphabet’s subsidiary following the purchase. It’s understood that the startup will continue pursuing its goal of creating portable health monitoring solutions that can be implemented into smartphones, albeit backed by Google’s funding and data.
Seeing how Alphabet already runs a standalone health division in the form of Verily that’s been investing in a broad range of related industries in a rather aggressive manner in recent years, it’s unclear why Senosis Health is now set to join Google instead of that particular unit of the U.S. tech conglomerate as its mission seems to be a better fit for the latter than the former. Sources familiar with the deal said that the startup is meant to bolster Google’s endeavors related to “digital health” in the region but didn’t clarify on the matter in any capacity. Likewise, neither party has yet confirmed the deal that was originally reported on Sunday and it remains to be seen whether Senosis Health will continue maintaining the HemaApp, SpiroCall, and OsteoApp under Google’s corporate umbrella or if it refocuses its resources in the near future.