Apple acquired Tueo Health, a startup building an asthma monitoring app for children

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Apple sees plenty of room to grow in the health market. The Apple Watch has already become a huge gateway into that world, along with HealthKit and the Health app for iOS. Which is why hearing about a new acquisition in that range certainly makes sense.

This week, it is being reported by CNBC that Apple has acquired another startup. This one is called Tueo Health, and they have been building an app that can monitor asthma in sleeping children. The acquisition actually happened months ago, with the company’s CEO and COO (Bronwyn Harris and Anura Patil, respectively) changing their LinkedIn profiles to reflect a switch over to Apple before the end of 2018.

As noted in the original report, Tueo Health raised upwards of $1.1 million back in 2017. It’s unknown at this time just how much Apple paid to acquire the smaller company, and at the time of publication an Apple spokesperson has not actually offered a comment on the story. That’s a bit different than the usual approach Apple takes, making a general statement about “acquiring companies from time to time”. That doesn’t necessarily mean that Apple didn’t acquire Tueo Health, though, with the LinkedIn profiles of its executives certainly suggesting that is the case.

Apple has acquired Tueo Health, a small start-up that was developing a system to help parents monitor asthma symptoms in sleeping children, according to a person familiar with the deal.

It’s unclear how much Apple paid for Tueo Health. The start-up raised a small seed round of $1.1 million in funding in 2017. Tueo’s CEO and co-founder Bronwyn Harris and chief operating officer Anura Patil changed their employer to Apple on LinkedIn in late 2018, which is likely around the time Apple completed its acquisition of the company.

The app itself would pair with commercial breathing apparatus to help monitor asthma in sleeping children. The app would serve as a way to stay on top of any irregularities, and would send a notification to the parent’s smartphone if any were detected while the child was sleeping.

What this actually means for Apple remains to be seen. Sleep monitoring is an oft-rumored feature coming to the Apple Watch, and it’s possible that some of the technology that Tueo Health was working on could help with this. Or, Apple could be wanting to add a similar asthma tracking feature at some point in the future as well.

What do you think Apple could do with this latest acquisition?