This startup’s $1.5 million raise is a good sign for the region’s health IT aspirations

Lifevest Health left Denver for a Philly-area accelerator three years ago. Now the company is announcing a round of funding from a slate of local investors, plus a new Center City office.
The workplace wellness company, which has since rebranded as Life.io, closed a $1.5 million round of funding from investors like Robin Hood Ventures, Rittenhouse Ventures, Ben Franklin Technology Partners and Delaware Crossing. Undisclosed local angel investors also participated.
(Life.io cofounder Jon Cooper also pitched at Steve Case’s Rise of the Rest pitch competition last fall.)
Life.io is following a recent trend we’ve noticed, in which local startups raise entire rounds off of local investors. See: Sidecar, Phenom People, Journey Sales. Life.io’s round is especially promising because it suggests that there’s early-stage capital for health IT companies — something the region will need if it wants to kickstart a further med-tech movement.
Life.io will use the money to scale its wellness incentive product in the U.S. and overseas, said cofounder Mike Logsdon.
The company has previously been backed by Denver-based health IT veteran Jeff Margolis, who founded a company that Cooper used to work for.
They’re also moving into Uber’s former driver operations office at 13th and Sansom. (Uber opened a new office in Southwest Philly.) The 2,000-square-foot space will accommodate Life.io’s growth: The company plans to grow from 15 employees to 25-30 in the next year and a half, Logsdon said.
It’s Life.io’s first office of their own. They did stints in coworking spaces like Impact Hub and Benjamin’s Desk and also colocated for a time with fellow tech company Ticketleap.
Life.io was an early adopter, so to speak, of the region’s health IT scene. They came to Princeton for Tigerlabs’ accelerator and moved to Philadelphia because of its growing health IT scene — way before concerted efforts like the Health Care Innovation Collaborative.