In Episode 6 of Health Tech Deals, Jess and I might be two new characters and Sesame Street! Keep watching to find out which ones. Some new deals, brought to you by the letter A: Alto Pharmacy raises $200 million; Athelas raises $132 million; A Place for Mom raises $175 million; and Summus Global raises $22 million. -Matthew Holt

Jessica DaMassa:              Well, hello, Matthew Holt. I have an important question for you. It looks like all of the deals we have to talk about today start with the letter ‘a’, which leads me to believe that we might be two new characters on Sesame Street. Now, are we more like Ernie and Bert or Oscar the Grouch and Big Bird? Those are the important questions that we’re asking here on the February 2nd episode of “Health Tech Deals”.

Matthew Holt:                   So Jessica. I’m very tall, so I must be Big Bird, and you must be Oscar the Grouch.

Jessica DaMassa:              Don’t think so.

Matthew Holt:                   All right? Maybe the other way. Anyway, it’s all brought to you by the letter ‘a’.

Jessica DaMassa:              Actually, no. I feel like I might be more… You know what we’re more like… Cookie Monster is you, and I’m like Elmo.

Matthew Holt:                   To be honest, I never watched Sesame Street because they didn’t have an England one at the time. So I’ve never liked [crosstalk] I wasn’t brought up like that-

Jessica DaMassa:              You’re British. All right. This explains a lot.           But this episode is brought to you by the letter ‘a’. So hey, before we get started, Akili SPACed out.

Matthew Holt:                   SPACed out, baby.

Jessica DaMassa:              I did not think we’d see another SPAC. Did you?

Matthew Holt:                   No. Chamath is at it again, right? He’s made so much money off his previous SPACs where he… including Clover, which is up today because digital health went back up today. But, all the money, all the specs that have created, he’s at it again. And this one, he didn’t want like a kidney drug function thing. And now Akili, which does the games for ADHD for kids to do other stuff. As he had some revenue a while back from one of his drug company partnerships, but seems to have well less this year. It’s backing out of a billion dollar valuation. They apparently going to put four hundred million into it.

Jessica DaMassa:              I did not think we’d see another SPAC.

Matthew Holt:                   Well, they’re planning for the summer. So it’s a long way between here and there. We’re going to see what happens to the stock market, blah, blah, blah, does Russia invade Ukraine and who knows. All right, do you want to do the actual ones that we’ve got?

Jessica DaMassa:              Sure do. Set your little timer.

Matthew Holt:                   These are actual deals that have actually happened, not like “announced” ones.

Jessica DaMassa:              This episode, brought to you by the letter ‘a’. Here we go. Alto pharmacy gets $200 million. It brings their total up to $550 million. This is SoftBank money. Matthew Holt, tell me about this, pharmacy that delivers.

Matthew Holt:                   Yeah, they are one, a bit like Capsule, Medley, and yes, Amazon, and my go to CBS and Walgreens. There’s actually delivering, sending people on motorbikes with drugs to your house. I don’t know if they’re doing it by mail or whatever. They do do control substances, I found out, I’m about to become a client. Because ADHD medication is something that I write about now and again. So, obviously there’s a big turnaround the way pharmacy happens, a lot of revenue, I think they were at $700 million plus in revenue. But probably losing a ton of money still, while they build out their stuff. And they’re west coast based capsule is east coast base. And they’ll probably meet in the middle somewhere.

Jessica DaMassa:              All right, Athelas gets $132 million, brings their total up to $222 million. Sequoia’s in this General Catalyst. They also did a round in the summer that we missed. Tell me.

Matthew Holt:                   It was last summer they did around like $72 million, General Catalyst led. They are another remote patient monitoring company. They have their own internet connected blood device. It sounds kind of Theranos-ey, but I think it’s sort to do with blood draw on your finger, just for cancer. They also have some tool for… they have a compliance tool called PillTrack and they have stuff for diabetes, my blood pressure. They claim, be the 20 or 40,000 users up from 2000 in 2020. I don’t know if that’s true. And, General Catalyst led a round with a competitor, whose name I’ve forgotten. So I don’t quite know what’s going on there, but we’ll find out if they’re the big guys they think they are.

Jessica DaMassa:              A Place for Mom gets $175 million. This is a senior care referral service.

Matthew Holt:                   Yeah, they’ve been around forever. You’ve seen their TV commercials. You call them up and they’ll suggest a… it’s a broker, find a place for mom. They raised a bit of VC back in 2006, but this round is obviously to scale out, mostly around home care. Because home care, as you might go… No, is going crazy. I wonder why people don’t want to go to nursing homes. Can’t think.

Jessica DaMassa:              Can’t imagine. And Summus Global gets $22 million, brings their total up to $50 million. And Matthew Holt, can you explain to me how this made our all letter ‘a’ episode, please?

Matthew Holt:                   Yes. Very clear.

Jessica DaMassa:              Oh yeah. Super clear.

Matthew Holt:                   Summus. Stay with me. Stay with me. We’re at the end of the two minutes with things on line. Summus Global, which is pronounced ‘Sumus’, not ‘Summus’, despite the fact it has two m’s and they don’t know how to pronounce themselves.

Jessica DaMassa:              I said, ‘Sumus’!

Matthew Holt:                   I know, you got it right. I’m just correcting people me who might see the wrong thing and say, “did they say the name wrong though?” No, we got it right.

                                                I interviewed them, CEO and CEO, a couple of weeks ago on THCB-

Jessica DaMassa:              All right. Get me to ‘a’. Go.

Matthew Holt:                   Okay. This round… follow me, follow me… is come from a guy called Mitch Rales, who’s a billionaire. He’s the owner and co-founder and CEO of Danaher, which is a really big life science conglomerate. And, the round is from him and his foundation, which is the Glenstone Foundation. And the Glenstone Foundation runs the Glenstone Museum, which is an art museum in Maryland. So it’s kind of like an ‘a’, if you believe art. I’m stretching it a bit. All right. Let me tell you what Summus does-

Jessica DaMassa:              You? No?

Matthew Holt:                   It’s a virtual specialist program. Basically, it’s sold to employers and some health plans. You go online, you type in your query and essentially it becomes a competitor kind of with the navigators. But it’s sending you to specialists. It’s got a whole survey. You can see a very long and detailed interview about how it works on THCB, if you go back to mid January and Google Summus. But, it’s pretty interesting company. It’s not quite in the navigator space. It’s not quite the second opinion space, but it’s somewhere around and about that. But it is also the first place people go to ask questions about their health. So, it’s kind of like in the chat bot game as well. It’s an interesting company.

Jessica DaMassa:              Interesting. I love how nobody wants to be in that navigator category. Like nobody. I’m just going to just start a company to just be in the navigator category because nobody else is going to be in there. Like, firmly I’m a navigator, I’m not doing anything else.

Matthew Holt:                   You’ll clean up.

Jessica DaMassa:              I’m just telling people where to go and what to do. And speaking of, because I’m super good at it, you should go to Twitter and follow us there. I am @jessdamassa, he is @boltyboy. And you can also go to thehealthcareblog.com and sign up for our email newsletter and get these cute little ‘Health Tech Deals’ episodes delivered via the newsletter into your inbox, every week, along with the best content from the blog. And like a million interviews, like this last episode had a million interviews.

Matthew Holt:                   Can I tell them about exciting stuff coming up?

Jessica DaMassa:              Yes.

Matthew Holt:                   There’s going to be a newsletter from WTF health. Go there and sign up, just as this newsletters going to happen. And, you’re going to do a podcast, aren’t you?

Jessica DaMassa:              I am.

Matthew Holt:                   Jess is going to do a podcast. I’m not quite sure when it’s coming-

Jessica DaMassa:              Our fans have been waiting for five years for me to finally get my podcast put together. We’re this close.

Matthew Holt:                   There will be a podcast newsletter. Go to wtf.health and sign up and you’ll find out more about it.

Jessica DaMassa:              Thank you. I can’t wait till we have the episode that’s sponsored by the letter ‘w’, or ‘t’, or ‘f’, or altogether?

Matthew Holt:                   Anytime.

Jessica DaMassa:              Anytime. All right. We will be back because we’re like a whole bunch of deals. Like in the hole here, friend. We need to like dig our way out.

Matthew Holt:                   We’ll be back tomorrow. What more do you supposedly want?

Jessica DaMassa:              Are you going to do your Groundhog Day, Groundhog impression, as you have done in years past?

Matthew Holt:                   I can see-

Jessica DaMassa:              If he sees his shadow, that’s it for the funding for this year, folks.

Matthew Holt:                   I might be seeing a big shadow in a second.

Jessica DaMassa:              All right. We’ll see you guys soon. Thanks for watching. Bye.