Germany-based publishing group Bauer Media and venture capital firm SparkLabs Global have led a $6.7m series A investment round for Sweden-based health startup Lifesum.
Lifesum is a health startup that helps its users count calories and lose weight. It already has four million registered members who use its app to help build diet plans and exercise regimes.
Despite it being Bauer Media’s only investment in 2014, Bauer said that it was one of the biggest first rounds of financing raised in Europe so far this year. Lifesum tallies well with Bauer Media’s portfolio of lifestyle magazines, which includes Cosmopolitan, Shape and InTouch.
The funding was Lifesum’s first external funding round, though it did receive $100,000 from food manufacturer Unilever in March in return for developing a digital marketing campaign for the conglomerate’s brands.
The money will be used to be help Lifesum expand out of Europe. The global mobile healthcare market was estimated to be worth $6.3bn last year, and it is expected to reach $20.6bn by 2018, according to figures cited by Lifesum.