Apple is expanding its healthcare tech footprint. CNBC reports that the tech giant has acquired Tueo Health, an early-stage, Bay Area startup that was developing an asthma management system designed to monitor asthma symptoms in sleeping children.
Details of the acquisition, believed to be an acquihire and thus focused on employee acquisition, are unknown. Tueo Health raised a modest seed round of $1.1 million in 2017. The outlet notes that Tueo’s CEO and co-founder Bronwyn Harris and chief operating officer Anura Patil changed their employer to Apple on their LinkedIn profiles in late 2018, around when the acquisition is thought to have been completed.
Tueo Health’s mobile app worked in concert with commercial breathing sensors to monitor asthma symptoms in children and send alerts to parents if the system observed overnight changes in breathing.
This move comes as Apple continues to beef up health features across its product line, CNBC reports, most notably the Apple Watch, the latest version of which can perform an electrocardiogram and detect when a wearer falls. More updates to its Health app for iPhones are expected to come this summer, per Bloomberg.
Apple has made no secret of its ambitions in health technology. Apple CEO Tim Cook told CNBC’s Jim Cramer earlier this year that he believes health care will be “Apple’s greatest contribution to mankind.”
