Today on Health in 2 Point 00, Jess and I talk about the importance of a good company name. Some deals today: Truepill gets 142 million in a Series C bringing their valuation to 1.6 billion with 300 million ARR; Stride Health gets 47 million gets, bringing up their total to 86 million; Bardavon Health Innovations gets 90 million, bringing their total up to 109 million; Wider Circle gets 38 million, invested in by AmeriHealth Caritas. – Matthew Holt
#Healthin2Point00, Episode 220 | Olive’s massive raise, Ro buys Kit, plus funding for Tendo & SWORD
Today on Health in 2 Point 00, I’m cheering England’s win against Germany this week – but Jess keeps us on track with health tech deals. Olive gets another $400 million, bringing their total up to $902 million – with $802 million of that since March 2020. Tendo Systems gets $50 million in a Series A, working on communication between providers and consumers. General Catalyst strikes again, this time in a round with SWORD Health raising $85 million in a Series C, bringing their total to $135 million. This is an MSK company, with a lot of good investors here. Finally, Ro buys Kit an at-home testing company – how does Hims stack up now? And, in case you missed it, Sharecare hits the NYSE today – get the scoop from Jess’s interview with their CEO yesterday. –Matthew Holt
THCB Gang Episode 23 8/27
Episode 23 of “The THCB Gang” was live-streamed on Thursday, August 27th! Watch it below!
Matthew Holt (@boltyboy) was joined by some of our regulars: health futurist Ian Morrison (@seccurve), WTF Health Host Jessica DaMassa (@jessdamassa), health care consultant Daniel O’Neill (@dp_oneill). The conversation revolved around how providers should reshape some of their practices amid the pandemic, what the large Teladoc-Livongo merger brings to the marketplace, and how there are still lots of potential ways start-ups can fit their models into care practices in the industry.
If you’d rather listen to the episode, the audio is preserved as a weekly podcast available on our iTunes & Spotify channels — Zoya Khan
Health in 2 Point 00, Episode 144 | Magical Forests, PsychCentral’s History, & More Funding Rounds
On Episode 144 of Health in 2 Point 00, Matthew has gingerly emerged from his office and gone into a Magical Forest! Jess asks me about Healthline media acquiring PsychCentral, the first-ever online psychiatry support group and I explain the history of how it has been passed around from Corporates to PE firms, Bridge Connector getting 25.5M for its interoperability platform, Cecelia Health raising $13M for its chronic condition management service, and Reify closing $30M to help pharma companies run clinical trials from home. Also, we had our first book club discussion with authors Hemant Teneja (VC at General Catalyst) & Stephen Klasko (CEO at Jefferson Health System) on their book “UnHealthcare: A Manifesto for Health Assurance”. Glen Tullman also made a special guest appearance during the discussion. The episode will be released soon! – Matthew Holt
Vida Health’s CEO on Scaling Up in the Highly Competitive Chronic Condition Virtual Care Space
By JESSICA DaMASSA, WTF HEALTH
Even before Covid19, virtual care for chronic conditions was a hot and competitive area, with the heat turned up by Livongo Health’s IPO last year and big funding rounds for companies like Omada Health, Virta Health, and One Drop. Another contender in the space, Vida Health, has been best known for taking a “platform” approach to chronic condition management before “platforming out” became the-move-to-make for scaling health tech companies. Their digital health biz actually started out with a “whole health approach” to helping patients manage all their conditions at once, integrating care for diabetes, hypertension, COPD, high cholesterol, mental health conditions, and more from the get-go. Contrast that to some of their biggest competitors, who have adapted to that approach by adding on treatments for co-morbidities as their core businesses evolved.
Is there a benefit to starting out with a holistic care model that those who build it along the way can’t capture? We caught up with Vida Health’s founder & CEO, Stephanie Tilenius, to find out what advantage starting out as a platform play has brought to her business, which just closed a $25M funding round in April and is now available to more than 1.5 million people through employers and health plans.
How will the company scale from here? How will they remain competitive in such a crowded space? Stephanie talks through some of Vida Health’s post-pandemic plans AND how lessons learned from her “previous life” as an exec in Big Tech during that industry’s growth era of the 2000s & 2010s has shaped her thinking about the uptake of technology in healthcare. Not only did Stephanie work at eBay, PayPal, and Google during the birth of the online payment era, BUT she also helped take an online pharmacy company (Planet Rx) public during the dotcom boom.
Health in 2 Point 00, Episode 137| $10M in Seed Rounds, AI & Chatbots, and a New Meditation App?
Today on Episode 137 of Health in 2 Point 00, Jess questions if “Jack in the Bean Stalk” is actually abut how VCs are growing into the health tech space. Listen to Jess’s take on the comparison as she asks me about Sprout getting $10M in a seed round to grow its Autism platform, Gyant securing $13.6M to improve its AI & Chatbot functions for providers, Meditopia receiving $15M for its medication app, Caption Health raising $53M to help people conduct ultrasounds, and Kind Body raising $32M for its fertility care platform. Enjoy! — Matthew Holt
“Going Digital: Behavioral Health Tech Conference” Matthew Holt & Jessica DaMassa’s Long, Exhaustive & Boring Overview
Matthew Holt and Jessica DaMassa gave a talk at the “Going Digital: Behavioral Health Tech Conference” on June 17, 2020. They spoke about how technology is evolving the mental health space, along with their thoughts on where the future of the industry is headed.
Jess & Matthew first start off with their “Health in 2 Point 00” segment, discussing all of the funding deals in the mental health space, from Headspace to Mindstrong raising money in Q1, to Kaiser rolling out MyStrength to its members.
Then they jump into a deeper dive segment, where they discuss how the money is being distributed in the mental health space, and how startups are coming up with creative solutions to package their services. Some mental health companies are wrapping solutions into other digital health platforms that already manage chronic conditions, like Livongo & Omada, others are working to directly address and treat mental health issues, and some are developing digital therapeutic solutions to manage mental health problems. As this part of the industry grows, Matthew & Jess predict how the mental health tech space will change & develop with increasing demand, more investments, and a lot more innovative tools to serve the population’s needs.
Zoya Khan is the EIC of The Health Care Blog & a Strategy Manager at SMACK.health
Health in 2 Point 00, Episode 134 | Health Tech’s “PPP Blacklist”, Walgreens and VillageMD, & more
Today on Episode 134 of Health in 2 Point 00, Jess and I cover Livongo’s stock price swinging, Brian Dolan’s PPP “Black List” for Health Tech Startups, and Oak Street Health & GoHealth filing their S-1’s. We also get Matthew’s take on Walgreen’s deal with Village MD to become a primary care center, and Doctor on Demand closing a $75M round, bringing its total to $235M in funding —Matthew Holt
THCB Gang Episode 15
Episode 15 of “The THCB Gang” was live-streamed on Thursday, June 25th!
Joining Matthew Holt were our regulars: health futurist Ian Morrison (@seccurve), writer Kim Bellard (@kimbbellard), WTF Health Host Jessica DaMassa (@jessdamassa), radiologist Saurabh Jha (@RougeRad), policy expert Vince Kuraitis (@VinceKuraitis), and THCB’s Editor-in-Chief, Me (@zoyak1594)! We got into increasing COVID-19 rates, updates in health policy, what is the future of hospitals, and how the new generation is dealing with the health care industry. All while keeping an eye on the politics of the US.
If you’d rather listen, the audio is preserved as a weekly podcast available on our iTunes & Spotify channels — Zoya Khan
Health in 2 Point 00, Episode 74 | European Money, Postpartum Care, & Social Determinants of Health
Today on Health in 2 Point 00, Jess and I are standing on a roof answering health tech questions from the Digital Health Commercialization Panel event in San Francisco. In this episode, Jess asks me about all the money that is being raised or spent in the health tech worlds of Europe and the US. DoctoLib, a company that is like ZocDoc in the US, raised 150 million Euro, which is probably the largest raise for a European company involved in health tech. Meanwhile, in the US, Teledoc also stretches its way into Europe, buying MédecinDirect, which is a telehealth company in France. We also see health tech companies in the employer health space taking home large piles of cash. Cleo, which is a platform entirely run by women serving women’s’ health postpartum, raises 27 million. UniteUs, which is a company focused on improving people’s social determinants of health, raises 30 million, but I still worry about this type of initiative and want to see if there is a market for this type of care and if hospitals are willing to pay for it– Matthew Holt
