Health monitoring smartwatch maker iBeat, Inc. has announced it has closed an approximately $1.5 million seed round that was led by Maveron, Subtraction Capital, and Correlation Ventures that included Ali and Hadi Partovi, NFL offensive tackle Russell Okung, KKR founding partner Henry Kravis, Band of Angels, and Ammunition Group.

Based in San Francisco and founded in May this year by Ryan Howard, Founder and former Chief Executive Officer of Practice Fusion, iBeat is currently building a smartwatch that perpetually monitors and analyzes users’ 24-7 heart activity.

The device monitors a user for cardiac arrest and if it detects the heart stopping or any type of erratic behavior alerts the user asks them if they are okay with or not; should the user not response iBeat instantly alerts the user, their loved ones, and emergency responders in real-time, helping ensure immediate care.

The smartwatch is fully autonomous and has its own cellular connection so it doesn’t require connection to a phone to call for help.

Howard was inspired to build iBeat following the close death of a friend last year, who passed away in his sleep at the age of 40.

“Over the past decade building the largest cloud-based physician-patient platform in the U.S., I’m applying many of my learnings, including incorporating the DNA that established our award-winning culture and product, as well as reconciling many of the mistakes I made at Practice Fusion,” Howard said in May. “We’re incredibly excited to be bringing a Wearable-as-a-Service to market that we believe will be massively impactful to the community and will also have the potential to save lives.”

Well received

“The interest we’ve had in iBeat has been remarkable,” Howard said in a statement sent to SiliconANGLE. “We were oversubscribed for our seed funding and are thrilled to see such high caliber investors who also recognize the potential of this product.

“Cardiac arrest is the leading cause of death in the U.S., and nine out of ten people who have a cardiac arrest incident without intervention die. Our vision is to lower this number by bringing to market a beautiful and sleek smartwatch that will quicken the delivery of care and help save lives.”

iBeat said it would use the new funding to recruit high-profile talent, expand the company’s infrastructure and operations, and commercializing it first product.

Image credit: iBeat