StuffThatWorks nabs $9M for crowdsourced insights on health conditions –
Summary
Waze upended the world of navigation when it took the approach of blending basic mapping data with crowdsourced feedback on the best routes, annoying traffic and other road conditions. Even though this is the first funding its announcing and the first time that StuffThatWorks is getting its name out there, the startup has been quietly building its audience of users through word of mouth, specifically through tapping other networks where people are congregating to talk about health issues, such as Groups on Facebook (about half of which, it turns out, are related to medical conditions). That leaves a long tail of “orphan” rare diseases and conditions that simply have not had a critical mass of affected patients, and subsequent attention and funding from the world of medicine, to be properly addressed. Other startups have started to explore how to leverage the power of AI, crowdsourcing and simply the internet to better tackle the issue of the vast amount of permutations that exist with chronic and unsolved conditions. “We believe that StuffThatWorks can not only help millions of people get access to valuable knowledge on treatment effectiveness but also disrupt and innovate the way data from patients in the real world is collected and analyzed today.”’