Investment to Fuel Growth of Unprecedented Online Community for Physicians

Sermo, the fastest growing online community created by physicians, for physicians, recently announced the closing of a $3 million in total Series A round of funding from Longworth Venture Partners. The funding supports the rapid growth of Sermo’s revolutionary system that enables physicians nationwide to discuss observations and unanswered clinical questions from their daily practice, challenging or corroborating each other’s opinions in order to improve patient care.

“Sermo has opened a door to a whole new way of surfacing important events and trends in medicine,” said Paul Margolis, Partner, Longworth Venture Partners and member of the Sermo board of directors. “We are very enthusiastic about this investment – it’s clear from the rapid adoption of Sermo during its pilot phase that this community is something physicians have long awaited. There is no doubt that Sermo will successfully fill a void in the current healthcare market.”

Sermo leverages new social networking prediction markets and information arbitrage technologies, to deliver an easy-to-use solution that empowers physicians like no other. Sermo’s business model is unique in that it financially rewards physicians who contribute their astute observations and clinical insights to the community and, at the same time, provides government health organizations, fund managers and analysts with access to real-time, actionable data that is customized to their specific interests. Ultimately, Sermo has created an entirely new information exchange for improving patient care.

“We knew we were on to something when we started to see thousands of registrations flow in during our pilot testing, but now we know this is just the tip of the iceberg,” said Founder and CEO, Daniel Palestrant, MD. “We have tapped into pent up demand among physicians to share and benefit from each other’s insights. As Sermo harnesses the power of social networking technology and applies it to a financially astute business model, we have created a paradigm shift in how new ideas in medicine are surfaced and investigated.”