Porto tech company raises an 85M$ investment and doubles new hires
22 Jul 2021
SWORD Health tech company draws investors’ attention once again by raising a new capital injection, this time of 85M$ (71,4M€). If in February this company that develops systems of digital physiotherapy intended to hire about 100 workers for Porto, now those figures should reach 200.
According to Dinheiro Vivo, this capital injection will allow the duplication of recruitment intentions, as it constitutes one of the assumptions of an investment round of such calibre. As a result, over 400 people should join the 120 workers that already composed the teams in the offices of Sá da Bandeira, Salt Lake City and New York: half in Porto and half in the United States.
Investment in the Portuguese startup was led by North American venture capital society General Catalyst, who already betted on tech companies such as Airbnb, Snapchat and Stripe. The group also includes BOND, Highmark Ventures and BPEA, and current investors Khosla Ventures, Founders Fund, Transformation Capital e Green Innovations.
In a press release, Delian Asparuhov, from Founders Fund, states that "SWORD is set to become one of the world’s most important healthcare companies over the next five years”. Chris Bischoff, director of General Catalyst, has also manifested his "enthusiasm” for a partnership capable of "leveraging the impact of 2 billion patients worldwide, helping to solve one of the most pressing and urgent global healthcare problems” as is the case of musculoskeletal disorders.
Apart from reinforcing human resources, SWORD Health has set its sights on the development of digital therapies and on the acceleration of its expansion process, in an operation that already reaches Europe, the United States and Australia.
Combining artificial intelligence with clinical teams, the company sustains that this investment will allow addressing a "600% yearly growth” and an increase of more than 1000% in the number of patients under treatment, which place SWORD Health as "one of the startups with higher growth in the United States”.
Five months have passed since the announcement of a 25M$-worth series B investment (the second phase of startups’ journey, with the aim of expanding businesses, improving processes, recruiting talent and exploring new markets). This week, SWORD Health confirms the most recent capital injection, of series C, the second largest ever received by a Portuguese company.
According to Dinheiro Vivo, this capital injection will allow the duplication of recruitment intentions, as it constitutes one of the assumptions of an investment round of such calibre. As a result, over 400 people should join the 120 workers that already composed the teams in the offices of Sá da Bandeira, Salt Lake City and New York: half in Porto and half in the United States.
Investment in the Portuguese startup was led by North American venture capital society General Catalyst, who already betted on tech companies such as Airbnb, Snapchat and Stripe. The group also includes BOND, Highmark Ventures and BPEA, and current investors Khosla Ventures, Founders Fund, Transformation Capital e Green Innovations.
In a press release, Delian Asparuhov, from Founders Fund, states that "SWORD is set to become one of the world’s most important healthcare companies over the next five years”. Chris Bischoff, director of General Catalyst, has also manifested his "enthusiasm” for a partnership capable of "leveraging the impact of 2 billion patients worldwide, helping to solve one of the most pressing and urgent global healthcare problems” as is the case of musculoskeletal disorders.
Apart from reinforcing human resources, SWORD Health has set its sights on the development of digital therapies and on the acceleration of its expansion process, in an operation that already reaches Europe, the United States and Australia.
Combining artificial intelligence with clinical teams, the company sustains that this investment will allow addressing a "600% yearly growth” and an increase of more than 1000% in the number of patients under treatment, which place SWORD Health as "one of the startups with higher growth in the United States”.
Since its foundation, in 2015, the Portuguese tech company already obtained 135M$-worth capital injections. A report released in February, by The Startup Cities Alliance (SCALE), placed SWORD Health as one of the national startups with larger potential to become an unicorn company, evaluated in at least 1 billion dollars.
