Florida Blue leads $20M round for Audax Health

By Jonah Comstock
09:25 am
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battle by the bayAudax Health Solutions has announced a $20 million funding raise led by Navigy Holdings, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Florida Blue Cross Blue Shield. Additional contributors to the round include former Aetna CEO and current Audax board member Jack Rowe and Dan Rose, VP of Partnerships at Facebook.

This round is the company's first publicly-announced equity raise, although the company reports it previously raised $35 million in funding from corporate partners Cigna and Cardinal Health, as well as New Leaf Ventures and former Apple CEO John Sculley. Sculley is a supporter of the company and mentor of 24-year-old CEO Grant Verstandig. A previously reported $21 million debt raise for the company in January was most likely part of that funding.

Audax is developing a gamified health social network, called Zensey, to be used in employee wellness programs. The company's market strategy is to seek partnerships with payors and major employers, in the vein of previous partnerships with insurer Cigna and behavioral health and wellness company ValueOptions. Zensey was formerly known as Careverge. It's HIPAA compliant and certified by the National Committee for Quality Assurance. The network, which is in closed beta, has gamified wellness and fitness incentives, but also provides a place for patients to aggregate health data from providers and an anonymous forum to discuss health concerns with other members.

In addition to Zensey, Audax now touts two additional software offerings on its website. A competitive group running app called "Battle by the Bay" apparently leverages the Fitbit to facilitate a race across San Francisco, offering users facts about the city as the leader in the race passes certain milestones. The other is a "dynamic and graphical" tablet-based answer to traditional employee health assessments.

Besides Fitbit, Audax lists BodyMedia, Withings, and Polar as partners. Of those, at least Polar and Fitbit devices sync with Zensey, with more to come, according to the company.

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