Cuban digs into mobile health with Validic, Breathometer investments

By Jonah Comstock
12:55 pm
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Mark CubanMark Cuban, billionaire entrepreneur and owner of Landmark Theaters, Magnolia Pictures, and the Dallas Mavericks, has now dipped his toe into mobile health investing.

After making a $500,000 investment in smartphone-connected breathalyzer Breathometer on ABC's Shark Tank, Cuban has now participated in Validic's $760,000 seed round.

"Personalized health is the future of healthcare," Cuban said in a statement to the Triangle Business Journal," and with the explosive growth of new mobile apps and devices coming on the market, Validic solves a fundamental problem of integrating all those new innovations into the healthcare system. I'm very excited for the future of Validic and the mobile health space."

Validic helps wellness companies, healthcare providers, pharmaceutical companies, and health plans get access to the data from apps and devices that have open APIs, essentially aggregating them into one stream. It sports 75 integrations including Fitbit, Jawbone, Nike+, Withings, and iHealth. The company has 15 employees and is based in Durham, North Carolina.

Breathometer is less ensconced in the mobile health category. It's one of a number of recent attempts to build a smartphone-connected breathalyzer, but a high profile one. After raising $138,000 on Indiegogo, the company went on investment reality show Shark Tank where they sold Cuban 15 percent of their business for $500,000.

UPDATE: In an email to MobiHealthNews, Breathometer CEO Charles Michael Yim said his company was not simply building a smartphone-connected breathalyzer:

"Our device currently detects ethanol/alcohol, [and] while others are solely focused on only that, we're creating a multi-sensor breath analysis platform to truly maximize the digital health potential Breathometer has," Yim wrote. "Envision doing a doctor check up via your smartphone at home with a simple breath diagnosis verifying your sickness and having antibiotics delivered to your door. Our next version of the Breathometer device can detect halitosis, dehydration, [or] bad breath, and your metabolic rate through acetone. The end goal is pathogens, allergens, diabetes and potentially even cancer."

Cuban may be a big name in digital health investing, but he's not the first NBA team owner to invest in the space. Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong, an owner of the Los Angeles Lakers, reportedly negotiated the purchase of Vitality courtside during a Lakers game.

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