Following the closing of the company’s oversubscribed $20M Series A in 2020, Sidekick has today announced it has raised $55M in its Series B. Sidekick is a firm on a mission to develop and deliver effective & personalised digital therapeutics that prevent suffering and add quality to millions of lives globally. Digital therapeutics are next-gen therapeutics designed to prevent, treat and help people manage a wide range of medical disorders or diseases.
This round has thus far gone down as Iceland’s biggest round in 2022, according to Dealroom, and was led by London-based VC Novator Ventures beside Wellington Partners, Asabys Partners and Frumtak Ventures, as well as a US-based strategic investor yet to be revealed. Novator Ventures’ general partner and Founder, Birgir Mar Ragnarsson, will join Sidekick’s board on top of this news.
What does Sidekick do?
Sidekick is a digital therapeutics innovator bringing healthcare into people’s everyday lives, empowering them to gain control of their health. It achieves this by developing and delivering its therapeutics with digital technology, addressing the same endpoints as traditional treatments such as small molecule drugs and biologics, except with the added benefit of giving people the chance to be actively involved in their own treatment. When combined with traditional treatments, the overall efficacy is greatly increased.
The result of its patient-centric digital care platform is scalability across a wide range of chronic illnesses. Sidekick is currently delivering industry-leading retention and clinical impact on health outcomes including weight, cardiovascular fitness, blood glucose, fatigue, quality of life and medication adherence.
The platform also combines an evidence-based clinical approach with behavioural economics and gamification. So far, Sidekick’s platform is assisting global customers like Pfizer and Bayer to develop integrated combination therapeutics consisting of molecular drugs and digital therapeutics. The platform is approved as a CE-marked, Class I Medical Device.
Sidekick’s co-Founder and CEO Dr Tryggvi Thorgeirsson stated in a release, “The major challenge facing the world’s healthcare systems is how to support and treat people who are dealing with two or more chronic conditions. The cornerstone of Sidekick’s approach is our multi-chronic digital therapeutics platform, and this funding will allow us to scale even faster the production of a new generation of clinical treatments across all major chronic diseases.”
Viking roots, fighting illness
The Icelandic company was founded in 2014 by Saemundur Oddsson and Tryggvi Thorgeirsson, two passionate medical doctors on a mission to improve the health of humanity.
Sidekick’s strategic partnership with Bayer commenced in 2019 with the goal of providing digital therapeutics to patients with Peripheral Artery Disease (PAD). In 2020, the Reykjavík health tech then secured a deal with Pfizer addressing five inflammatory diseases across Europe and beyond.
Following this, at the height of the pandemic, Sidekick collaborated with the Icelandic government by providing remote triaging, monitoring and management of people infected with COVID-19. Shortly after, the company bagged a $20M Series A led by Wellington Partners and Asabys Partners. Over the past year, Sidekick has doubled down on its commercial footprint in the US including a collaboration with Anthem to support members suffering from COVID-19, Crohn’s disease and other chronic conditions.
Amidst the backdrop of its recent rapid growth, the company is now looking to further diversify its portfolio by expanding its chronic disease treatment across even more therapeutic areas, bolstering existing partnerships and forging new alliances with key stakeholders across the entire healthcare ecosystem.
