Zillion Secures $28 Million Series C Funding to Expand Digital Patient Engagement Platform

The patient-provider engagement industry was estimated to have a total valuation of over $6.6 billion last year, with projections indicating it will grow to $16.4 billion by 2020. As the term “patient engagement” gains increasing traction, the market for patient-provider engagement platforms has become increasingly crowded. Nevertheless, one company, Zillion, has managed to stand out from the competition, earning recognition from both users and investors.

Zillion is a U.S.-based company operating a patient engagement platform, with its headquarters in Norwalk, Connecticut, and a branch office in Boston. The company recently secured $28 million in Series C financing, led by TwinFocus Capital Partners. The funds will be used to expand its SaaS-based interactive healthcare platform, increase user acquisition and sales volume, and tap into market potential.

“‘Engagement’ is one of the most frequently cited yet least implemented concepts in the healthcare industry. Although digital health initiatives have attracted widespread attention, communication between physicians and patients still relies predominantly on telephone calls, thereby perpetuating inefficiencies within the healthcare delivery system. Zillion aims to address this by creating superior online communication experiences, providing convenient tools for ‘patient engagement,’ and leveraging social networks and high-quality content to achieve better patient care outcomes,” said Jim Boyle, Chairman and CEO of Zillion, in a statement. “TwinFocus’s investment in us demonstrates their strong confidence in our company, vision, and technology platform. We look forward to developing more healthcare applications, innovating technological approaches to enhance online patient engagement, reduce healthcare costs, and deliver improved outcomes.”

Zillion’s platform offers a suite of interactive application tools, with its most notable feature being face-to-face medical video interactions—including one-on-one sessions, group videos, and live streaming—alongside dynamic content publishing, facilitating continuous engagement between healthcare providers and patients. The platform also features interactive newsletters, reminders, digital workforce management, data analytics, and health goal tracking. Zillion transforms operational content, human resource services, and project management into quantifiable digital products, fully demonstrating the potential of mobile technology to enhance patient engagement and empower consumers to take greater control of their own health. Reportedly, it also helps healthcare institutions optimize revenue cycles and balance financial performance.

In addition to enhancing medical records, Zillion also collects patient information from their connected smartphones. The platform complies with the U.S. Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), enabling healthcare providers using the platform to securely transmit confidential forms and documents, including patients’ physical examination results.

For healthcare providers requiring such a system, Zillion’s application programming interface (API) enables the creation of a personalized content management system, facilitating seamless communication with their patients. Healthcare providers can brand the Zillion platform with their corporate identity and select the specific patient-provider communication features and tools they need. For patients, getting started with Zillion is straightforward: simply download the Zillion app and follow their personal care team to receive interactive messages from their physicians.

Backend Content Management System - Zillion - Frontend PC and Mobile Applications

The Zillion platform is currently utilized for three types of projects: first, disease prevention, such as weight loss and weight management; second, chronic disease management, such as treating chronic diabetes or preventing the progression of early-stage diabetes; and third, procedural care, such as prenatal diagnostic processes, plastic surgery, or bariatric surgery. Recently, the company announced partnerships with UnitedHealth Group and Apollo Endosurgery to leverage the platform’s advantages in creating live, interactive healthcare experiences for patients, as well as providing disease education, group discussions, and online guidance.

Partnering with UnitedHealth Group

Leveraging Zillion’s advanced digital health technologies, individuals requiring dietary management—such as those with obesity or type 2 diabetes—are better positioned to combat their conditions. Through this collaboration, Zillion helped UnitedHealth Group build a customized mobile interactive platform tailored for U.S. users, supporting its weight-loss program called “Real Appeal.” The platform features real-time video interactions, text messaging, and other functionalities. For individuals pursuing weight-loss goals, Zillion tracks fitness activities and integrates dietary and exercise data for analysis, enabling users to clearly monitor their progress and assess how close they are to achieving their health targets. Since the second half of 2015, this digital interactive platform has been accessible to over one million registered users in the United States, with approximately 500,000 new users signing up in the first half of this year.

“Real Appeal” Interactive Weight-Loss Platform in Partnership with UnitedHealth Group

Partnering with Apollo Endosurgery

Zillion also partnered with Apollo Endosurgery, a supplier of endoscopic surgical products, to launch ORBERA.The Coach project. This telemedicine initiative is gaining significant traction, targeting patients who have undergone intragastric balloon therapy for medical weight loss. The platform provides them with customized online postoperative care. Zillion also helps these patients establish sustainable healthy lifestyle habits during the first year after surgery, enabling them to maintain a healthy weight and avoid the burdens of obesity for life.

“We will use this latest round of financing to strengthen collaborations with other companies and identify more strategic partners like them across the healthcare community,” said Boyle. Zillion’s clients also include self-insured employers and medical device companies, which can leverage the platform’s video capabilities for live business presentations or thematic reports. Whether individuals or groups are working toward health goals, they can utilize Zillion’s various features to support their management efforts.

ORBERA® Coach Platform-Assisted Intragastric Balloon Therapy in Collaboration with Apollo Endosurgery

Zillion’s public application programming interface (API) enables healthcare institutions to install exclusively customized clinical care applications, sparing them the burden of developing medical management software from scratch. “Hospitals prefer to focus on treating patients rather than devoting resources to software development,” Bill Van Wyck, Chief Innovation Officer at Zillion, told MobiHealthNews. “Our technology offers the flexibility and versatility needed to meet the demands of all stakeholders in healthcare services, whether they are vendors or purchasers.”

He also remarked, “The best technology is the kind you don’t even notice.” Healthcare institutions have indeed struggled to encourage patients to use outdated medical applications, failing to recognize that times have changed: patient needs have become more diverse, and the tools for doctor–patient communication should likewise be more varied and sophisticated. Zillion’s vision is to help these institutions gradually upgrade their applications to be more flexible and adaptable, enabling hospitals not only to treat patients with physical medical devices but also to seamlessly integrate into patients’ daily lives and effortlessly access their health information.

Zillion aims to make its app as simple and intuitive as widely adopted technologies—much like downloading music. Users can create a playlist and fill it song by song; similarly, Zillion’s platform seeks to offer healthcare institutions an analogous “playlist”-style application. “They only need to focus on the content of their medical services and select which features to use for engaging with users on Zillion.”

“Zillion offers multiple communication channels for healthcare professionals and patients”

Previously, Zillion’s CEO Boyle mentioned in an email Q&A that the company has raised a total of $35 million from its angel round to date.

TwinFocus Capital Partners, the investor in Zillion, is a firm serving global ultra-high-net-worth families, entrepreneurs, and professional investors. Paul Karger, CFA, Co-Founder and Managing Partner of TwinFocus, will join Zillion’s Board of Directors. “Zillion truly understands how to achieve patient engagement goals and has successfully extended medical care beyond the confines of hospitals to reach patients directly—a feat accomplished by very few companies,” praised Karger. “Telemedicine is a broad and rapidly maturing concept for the entire industry, significantly enhancing the quality and efficiency of healthcare. However, too many so-called telemedicine applications today merely cobble together existing technologies, resulting in content that is lackluster and offers poor usability. In contrast, Zillion has built its platform entirely from the user’s perspective, creating a solution that genuinely delivers personalized digital healthcare—a major benefit for both patients and physicians.”