MD Revolution Raises $7M for Web-based Health and Fitness Program

MD Revolution, a San Diego startup that has developed online technology to help people improve their health, says today it has closed on $7 million in a Series B round of funding. All of the funding came from individual investors, and the round brings total funding for the startup to $8 million, a spokeswoman said.

When I met last summer with CEO Samir Damani, a practicing cardiologist, he said he founded MD Revolution in 2011 to help people head off chronic disease by improving their metabolism and cardiovascular fitness. The company provides its RevUp program as a Web-based service for employers and physicians.

RevUp uses a variety of sensors and diagnostics to track the most important indicators of cardiovascular health. The data is monitored by health and fitness  specialists, who combine each person’s exercise regimen with good nutrition, exercise, and other healthy practices into a holistic health and fitness program. The company provides a Web dashboard that integrates the personalized data and makes it easy for users to exercise, eat right, and to help themselves feel better.

The company officially unveiled its RevUp program last month at the 2014 International Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.

In a statement today, MD Revolution says it also recently completed a pilot study that enrolled some Sharp Healthcare employees who were at high risk for chronic illness. With regular exercise and improved nutrition, Sharp employees using the RevUp program showed “statistically significant improvements in less than 90 days in weight, BMI, visceral fat, body fat, and cardiorespiratory fitness levels,” the company said.

MD Revolution also has been growing. The company now has 38 employees, more than twice the headcount it had six months ago.

“The clinical team has grown dramatically to support our recent Sharp Healthcare pilot and to provide the digital coaching” for the RevUp program offered to corporate customers, says Caitlin Caval of MD Revolution. “Our corporate team has ramped up to support continued build-out of new functionality for the platform as well as new distribution channels, joint ventures, and strategic partnerships.”

Author: Bruce V. Bigelow

In Memoriam: Our dear friend Bruce V. Bigelow passed away on June 29, 2018. He was the editor of Xconomy San Diego from 2008 to 2018. Read more about his life and work here. Bruce Bigelow joined Xconomy from the business desk of the San Diego Union-Tribune. He was a member of the team of reporters who were awarded the 2006 Pulitzer Prize in National Reporting for uncovering bribes paid to San Diego Republican Rep. Randy “Duke” Cunningham in exchange for special legislation earmarks. He also shared a 2006 award for enterprise reporting from the Society of Business Editors and Writers for “In Harm’s Way,” an article about the extraordinary casualty rate among employees working in Iraq for San Diego’s Titan Corp. He has written extensively about the 2002 corporate accounting scandal at software goliath Peregrine Systems. He also was a Gerald Loeb Award finalist and National Headline Award winner for “The Toymaker,” a 14-part chronicle of a San Diego start-up company. He takes special satisfaction, though, that the series was included in the library for nonfiction narrative journalism at the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard University. Bigelow graduated from U.C. Berkeley in 1977 with a degree in English Literature and from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism in 1979. Before joining the Union-Tribune in 1990, he worked for the Associated Press in Los Angeles and The Kansas City Times.