BOSTON: Folia Health, a patient-driven health technology company, announced Thursday the close of a $10.5 million Series A funding round to expand its platform that transforms lived health experiences into structured data for research and personalized care.
The round was led by S3 Ventures, with participation from existing investor Crosslink Capital and specialist fund Create Health Ventures.
Folia’s platform enables individuals with chronic and rare conditions to track their symptoms, treatments and outcomes. The company structures this data into what it calls home-reported outcomes (HROs), generating real-world evidence for researchers while giving patients unprecedented control over their information.
“People live in their bodies 24/7 — they notice patterns, track what works, spot when something’s off,” said Nell Meosky Luo, founder and CEO of Folia Health. “The knowledge held by each of our participants fills crucial knowledge gaps in traditional health data, which focuses on what happens when you’re at the clinic.”
A core tenet of Folia’s model is explicit patient consent and transparency. Any data used for external research requires permission, and participants receive detailed reports on how their information is being used. They can withdraw at any time and are compensated for their contributions through a revenue-sharing program called Data Dividends.
The investment will fuel Folia’s mission to scale its research efforts. The company’s data has already informed FDA discussions, treatment guidelines and partnerships with leading life science companies. Current initiatives include studies on rare kidney diseases, a national study on the cystic fibrosis drug Trikafta, and the first app-based, remote study capturing daily experiences of people with IgA nephropathy.
“Folia is a validated research platform redefining how we understand chronic and rare diseases,” said Brian R. Smith, Managing Director at S3 Ventures. “Nearly a decade of peer-reviewed research positions Folia as the gold standard for patient-driven real-world evidence.”
Company leadership also emphasized the critical role of high-quality, patient-generated data in the age of artificial intelligence.
“What gets lost in the excitement over the power of AI is the fact that these new technologies require the right data to give us insights that are meaningful and useful,” said Dan Toffling, co-founder and CTO of Folia Health. “Right now we’re dependent on incomplete and skewed datasets, typically information that’s collected a few days out of the year during brief interactions with clinicians.”
The funding announcement follows Folia’s recent launch of Mosaic, a community insights initiative that allows participants to ask questions and get answers based on aggregated, anonymized data from others with similar conditions.