MyHealthTeams raises $3.3M to expand team, build more niche social networks

MyAutismTeamSan Francisco-based MyHealthTeams, which offers niche social network for people with various medical issues, raised $3.36 million this week led by the Westly Group with participation from Adams Street Partners, 500 Startups, HealthTechCapital, Sand Hill Angels, TEEC, and several individual investors.

The company will use the money to expand its team and launch new social networks at a faster rate. MyHealthTeams currently has three, but wants to eventually launch 100.

“Five years from now, if you’re diagnosed with a chronic condition (like 1 in 2 Americans are today), our hope is that your doctor, or another person with the same condition, will tell you about a MyHealthTeams social network,” CEO Eric Peacock wrote on the company’s blog.

The three existing social networks are MyAustismTeam, MyBCTeam, designed for women diagnosed with breast cancer, and MyMSTeam, for people diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. MyHealthTeams also offers iOS and Android apps for all three social networks.

Since MyHealthTeams launched in 2011, they’ve attracted 52,000 members to its networks. Early last year the company also scored a spot on the Today Show.

The company signed a deal with ”a leader in the MS space” last December — implying it was a pharma company. The partnership is to help the partner recruit users on MyHealthTeams’ social networks for upcoming clinical trials. MyHealthTeams emphasizes that it will not share users’ personal data.

“Down the road, as we grow and users share their experiences and wisdom, we are seeing a number of opportunities to leverage that data to help describe likely treatment paths and predict outcomes so that our users can improve their lives,” Peacock wrote. “We are convinced that our social networks can not only help improve patient health outcomes, but also lower health care costs.”

In August 2012, MyHealthTeams raised $1.75 million to build out MyAutismTeam and develop mobile apps for its social networks.