Thousands of Members in its Long Covid Community; Expands into Metabolic Disease and Autoimmune Disorders
Eureka Health, a new community dedicated to helping chronic disease patients share experiences and discover the latest treatments, launched today to provide hope to people living with chronic diseases. Emerging from stealth with thousands already engaged in its Long Covid group, the AI-powered platform added metabolic disease, autoimmune disorders, ME/CFS, and related conditions. It will expand into other conditions in the coming weeks.
The company also announced that it has raised $7 million in funding. The seed round was led by Khosla Ventures, with participation from South Park Commons, Bling Capital, SciFi VC, Able Partners, and Bow Capital. Angels with healthcare and tech expertise include Anne Wojcicki, Co-Founder of 23andMe, Susan Wojcicki, former CEO at YouTube, and Marty Tenenbaum, Founder and Chairman at Cancer Commons, among others. Funds will be used to build and grow the community, expand its treatment database, and ultimately influence and advance treatment research.
A Treatment Community by Patients, for Patients
Today there is a huge demand for quality, personalized data on treatment benefits and side effects, but very little exists because research is slow and expensive. Patients trust other patients– and they are already sharing their experiences in an ad-hoc way that doesn’t advance collective understanding.
With Eureka, patients can discover new treatments working for others in the community, find patients with a similar health profile and learn what has helped them, and search for data on any treatment in an easy-to-use database. They can also connect with others to discuss their experiences in a safe and supportive space. Importantly, patients on Eureka have full control over their data at all times; they can remain anonymous if they choose, and decide for themselves what data they’d like to share and what to keep private.
Eureka is uniquely able to do this by using large language models (LLMs) to create a database with millions of real patient experiences in addition to the detailed reports being added by the community. The company continues to develop LLMs to interpret and summarize research, match similar patients, provide personalized predictions of the best treatments, and plans to offer patients their own AI assistant to help them understand the pros and cons of any treatment. With such capabilities, Eureka is poised to be a supercharged patient community that guides future research agendas and delivers immeasurable value to users.
“Long Covid is painful, debilitating, and can make you feel like you’re losing your mind. That’s a hard thing for people who have never experienced it to understand,” said Beren Airstone, a member of Eureka’s Long Covid community. “Eureka is where I go to learn from others going through the same thing. Some people are finding relief from simple treatments while other treatments might be a waste of time or money for someone with my symptoms. Eureka also lets me help others by sharing what I’ve tried.”
Built Upon Personal Experiences by Startup Veterans
Eureka began when Zain Memon had to become a part-time scientist himself when his mother was diagnosed with a rare chronic disease. After spending four years trying to navigate black holes of information and with limited access to others affected by the same disorder, Zain felt inspired to create a solution.
“Beyond the basic, first-line treatments, which didn’t work, my mom’s doctor had no answers. We were on our own, and that’s a scary, frustrating place to be,” said Zain, Eureka’s Co-Founder and CEO. “Two key learnings stood out: collecting health data is extremely expensive and typically only done in specialized studies on hundreds or thousands of people, which rules out many rare diseases like my mom’s, and the power of community is the best way to offset this deficit.”
After spending more than 20 years working with startups from early stage to IPO that served millions of users, Zain connected with Noah MacCallum, the Second Product Manager at Forward Health, who helped launch and scale a nationwide primary care network. In addition to his work in the tech sphere, Noah conducted research at MIT and Harvard, with hundreds of citations on his publications, giving him a unique lens into what the ideal treatment community could look like. The pair discussed their vision for a new model for treatment discovery and community building. Drawing on their deep backgrounds in engineering and product development, as well as their personal experiences, the Eureka platform came to life.
“At Khosla Ventures, we invest early in ideas that are bold and impactful,” said Adina Teklu, Partner at Khosla Ventures. “With Eureka, patients have a platform to exchange data and rare experiences with others, giving them a community in times when they need it the most.”
AI-Powered Treatment Community is Now Open
Starting today, the Long Covid, metabolic disease, autoimmune disorders, ME/CFS communities are open to all. Because Eureka is driven by the interests and needs of its community, the company encourages anyone touched by chronic illness to sign up for its waitlist for new conditions, as groups are being added each week.
About Eureka Health
Created to accelerate every human’s pursuit of better health, Eureka Health has combined its AI and patient-powered treatment database with the power of community to spark a movement that puts people in control of their care. The company is based in San Francisco and backed by industry luminaries and leading venture capitalists. Learn more at eurekahealth.com.
Originally announced July 12th, 2023
