GreatCall wins $7 million to expand mHealth offerings

GreatCall, the company best known for the simple, older-adult-friendly Jitterbug phone and plan, closed today on a $7 million subordinated venture loan from NXT Capital’s Venture Finance Group. According to NXT’s release, the financing is specifically tabbed to expand GreatCall’s 5Star Responder mPERS launched a year ago [TA 12 May 2011] and their portfolio of ‘next generation health and wellness wireless services.’ In the past year, GreatCall launched iPhone app MedCoach [TA 7 July 2011] and iPhone versions of 5Star (Instant Response) and LiveNurse (originally offered via Jitterbug, TA 3 Mar 2010). Despite its essentially easy-to-use, non-sexy alert and tracking products (not ‘transformative’, no self being ‘quantified’, and it’s for older adults, oh my!), GreatCall has won a solid group of VC backing. This move should cheer those non-buzzy companies looking for later rounds of financing in this unforgiving market. NXT release. Roundup at Mobihealthnews.