Digital chronic condition management company Vida Health has raised $30 million in a strategic Series C round.
Contributors to the round included Florida Blue parent company GuideWell Mutual Holding Corporation, telemedicine giant Teladoc Health and Workday Ventures, the investment arm of enterprise cloud software company Workday, all of which also announced new partnerships or integrations with Vida Health.
“I think we’re taking a unique approach in the market where we’re not just relying on venture funding,” CEO Stephanie Tilenius told MobiHealthNews. “We’re looking for strategic partners that can really add value to the company and drive distribution and healthcare expertise and enable us to scale to millions of chronic patients.”
Previous investors also contributed. The round brings Vida’s total funding to around $58 million.
WHAT THEY DO
Vida Health offers multifaceted systems for managing a number of physical and behavioral chronic conditions. The offering includes digital therapeutics, digital communication with live health coaches and, in many cases, connected devices which send biometric data to coaches and apps.
WHAT IT'S FOR
This round is about scale for Vida, with plans to use the funds for sales, marketing and recruiting coaches to expand Vida’s network.
“We have a product that works so now we’re focused on scaling it and reaching more customers,” Tilenius said. “In the US 60% of people have a chronic conditions, 40% have two or more. So it’s a huge opportunity to meet people where they are and take a holistic approach to their health, putting them back in control and reducing overall costs to the system.”
LOOKING AHEAD
Through the Guidewell deal, Vida Health will add Florida Blue as a customer, focusing on members with comorbidities.
“When we first started looking for a partner for our commercial insurance business, we knew we needed something that could address the needs of our entire population without losing the ability to personalize solutions,” Pat Geraghty, president and CEO of GuideWell and its health insurance company, Florida Blue, said in a statement. “Vida Health fits the bill as a virtual care platform for chronic disease management that combines both the human touch and the technology to scale. We’re very pleased to find a team that shares our values of care and we look forward to rolling it out.”
With Workday, the companies will partner to create a single sign-on integration between Vida’s platform and the Workday system.
“We’re proud to partner with a company like Vida Health because it puts people at the center of care with a virtual solution that empowers employees to be the very best they can be,” Leighanne Levensaler, SVP of corporate strategy at Workday, and managing director and co-head of Workday Ventures, said in a statement.
Finally, the Teladoc deal will see the two companies working together to offer customers a bundled solution that includes both virtual care offerings and Vida Health’s chronic care offerings.
“It’s a very meaningful expansion for us and I think it will be well received by our clients and by the market as an innovative and unique partnership, and an ability to deliver a broader and full suite solution which is what our clients have been asking us for,” Dan Trencher, SVP of product and strategy at Teladoc, told MobiHealthNews. “They have vendor fatigue and they’re tired of point solutions.”
What will start out as a business integration will also grow into a technology innovation, with the two companies hoping to offer a consolidated front end patient experience as well as easy tools for Teladoc physicians to refer patients to a Vida program.
MARKET SNAPSHOT
There are more names in digital chronic condition management than there used to be, though Tilenius says the market is so large and the offerings so different that it doesn’t feel crowded.
Some companies that have raised significant funds and made major acquisitions lately are Livongo, which is planning to go public soon, and Omada Health. There are also companies like Twine Health, now part of Fitbit Health Solutions, that have offered health coaching.
Tilenius says Vida stands out because of how it combines a high-touch and high-tech offering.
“If you look at behavior health for example, most companies either have CBT only and it’s all digital, or they have live therapists,” she said. “We’re combining both and getting very strong outcomes.”
The partnership with Teladoc could be another competitive differentiator, unless other telemedicine vendors and chronic condition management companies decide to follow suit.
