New digital health fund in Philadelphia makes its first deal

A $6 million digital health investment fund launched in December by Ben Franklin Technology Partners of Southeastern Pennsylvania, Independence Health Group, and Safeguard Scientifics has made its first investment, of $150,000 in seed financing.

The recipient was VitalTrax, a Philadelphia company started last year to help facilitate clinical trials for patients and researchers through a smartphone app and cloud-based data services. VitalTrax is expected to use the money to continue developing its system.

Zikria Syed founded VitalTrax last year after his previous company, NextDocs Corp.  of Conshohocken, was sold in June 2015. NextDocs helped life-sciences companies deal with regulatory documents. It is now part of an Austin, Texas, company called Aurea.