Keona Health has closed $2.5 million in funding to fund its growth campaign. The health tech startup has designed software that takes patient information and classifies patient online to help nurses save time, according to The Herald Sun.

Co-founder and chief operating officer (COO) Stephen Dean explained: "Instead of patients having to wait one to four hours for someone medically trained to listen to (their) message, (they) can still get their history and their questions asked immediately."

Dean said that Keona's software guides patient through the process of submitting their health information online. Staff nurses can also take the data over the phone. The company aims to add a voice recognition feature for this service. The software is designed for the fields of pediatric, obstetrics and gynecology, family, and internal medicine. Keona hopes to widen the scope of practices catered by the software, the report detailed.

Keona Health is currently based in Chapel Hill. The startup had previously received a grant amounting to $450,000 from the National Institutes of Health and further funding given by the state, The Herald Sun reported.