BodyMedia Raises $12 Million Funding Round Led By Comcast Ventures

BodyMedia, one of the growing number of companies that offers wearable body sensors, just announced that it has raised a $12 million funding round led by Comcast Ventures. The company’s products, including its BodyMedia FIT on-body monitoring system, currently focuses on tracking users’ activity level, but the company plans to use the money raised in this round to focus on products related to chronic diseases like diabetes, as well as remote elder care and sleep disorders. BodyMedia is a new investment for Comcast Ventures. Other investors in this round include Draper Fisher Jurvetson ePlanet, Draper Triangle Ventures, Ascension Health Ventures and InCube Ventures.

BodyMedia launched all the way back in 1999. Prior to this round, BodyMedia had raised $37 million. Including this round, the company has now raised $49 million. This new funding round includes $2.7 million the company announced mid-round earlier this year. It’s worth noting that BodyMedia also previously received federal funding for its work on a diabetes prevention and management solution.

Its current line of armband systems tracks and analyzes users’ activity and also measures their sleep patterns. Now, however, as the company’s CEO Christine Robins notes, “the emerging convergence of healthcare, technology and consumerism provides an ideal launching pad for us to build on that heritage by introducing new body monitoring solutions tailored to managing a much broader range of health issues.”

BodyMedia sits at an interesting intersection between the growing health technology space and the self-tracking trend that’s been emerging over the last few years. By pushing deeper in the health space, the company should be able to differentiate itself from others in the self-tracking space like Fitbit and Zeo.

Comcast Venture’s portfolio, it’s worth noting, includes a wide range of companies, including Flipboard, SB Nation and JiWire.