Oracle is acquiring a tiny cloud startup backed by Qualcomm to build out its health science product suite
- Oracle is acquiring goBalto, a health tech start up which focuses on reducing the time it takes to start a new clinic trial.
- goBalto, which was last valued at $70 million in a 2015 funding round, was backed by investors including Qualcomm Ventures.
- The terms of the deal were not disclosed.
Oracle is making moves to grow its health science platform with its acquisition of goBalto, a cloud startup focused on streamlining the clinic trial process.
The San Francisco-based goBalto was last valued at $70 million in 2015, according to Pitchbook.
Since its Series A in 2008, goBalto has raised money from investors at Qualcomm Ventures, Aberdare Ventures, Mitsui Global Investment, Dolby Family Ventures and EDBI.
Oracle did not disclose the terms of the deal.
goBalto's so-called "study startup solutions" are used across 90,000 research sites, according to Oracle. It claims to reduce the time it takes to get a new study started by 30% by "streamlining and automating the selection and set up of the best performing clinical research sites to conduct trials."
The deal would represent Oracle's fifth acquisition this year, though Oracle's acquisitions have not generally been in the healthcare sector. The last significant health sciences companies Oracle acquired were Phase Forward in 2010 for $685 million and Clear Trial in 2012 for an undisclosed sum.
In a letter to customers shared Wednesday, Oracle executive Steve Rosenberg said that goBalto's tools will be integrated with Oracle's existing health science platform, which currently addresses clinical trial planning, data collection, trial execution and safety management.
"Clinical trial site selection and activation is one of the most manual and time consuming process for our customers in the trial design phase and the addition of goBalto will remove another barrier from delivering treatments to patients faster," Rosenberg wrote.