Physera — an app-based platform for musculoskeletal (MSK) exercises and remote consultations with physical therapists — has raised $8 million in a Series A round headed by BlueCross BlueShield Venture Partners.
With this, the company has now raised more than $10 million in total, and counts Innovation Endeavors, Lux Capital, Expa, Slow Ventures, iD Ventures, J-Angels, Rock Health’s Halle Tecco and other unnamed angel investors among its supporters.
What they do
Physera’s free Android and iOS app offers users a range of exercises designed to reduce MSK pains, each of which is demonstrated with in-app animations, voice prompts and other guidance.
For employer customers, however, the HIPAA-compliant platform’s full offering includes telehealth consultations with vetted physical therapists, who then develop a personalized daily care plan and provide continued support. The platform also covers employee onboarding, reporting and, if necessary, can organize the delivery of portable exercise equipment to employee’s homes.
“Our goal was to find the touch points and treatments that help people stay healthy and empower them to take care into their hands. We picked musculoskeletal care as a starting point because of its prevalence and high cost to patients in the form of unnecessary treatments,” cofounder and CEO Dan Rubinstein wrote in a blog post announcing the new funding. “In order to build a patient-first experience we built our own care delivery system, our own EMR and hired our own providers to proactively manage their patients to meet their goals. The Physera program is also delivered within the existing system, and given the cost effectiveness of our treatments in pre-empting avoidable procedures, self-insured employers and insurance companies are excited to deploy our program.”
According to its website, Physera’s platform holds a program adherence rate of over 75 percent, a participant medical spend reduction of more than 50 percent and a 90-plus percent satisfaction rating among program participants. The company’s network of physical therapists extends across the US and is being employed by Fortune 500 customers — among the newest of which being highlighted by the company is video game publisher Activision Blizzard.
What it’s for
Physera did not provide any clear indications of its future direction outside of general scaling and ongoing updates to the program.
Market snapshot
Among Physera’s most direct competition is Hinge Health, which also offers a digital benefits program with virtual coaching for patients with MSK conditions. The San Francisco-based company raised $26 million in a Series B round last August, which brought its total funding to $36 million.
Others in the broader digital physical therapy space include Reflexion Health, Physitrack and Sword Health.
On the record
“Physera’s approach to personalized musculoskeletal (MSK) care will change the way pain is treated,” Michael Spadafore, managing director of Sandbox Industries, who will be joining Physera’s board on behalf of BCBSVP, said in a statement. “Over 100 million people in America suffer from musculoskeletal pain. Few get the care they need because of inconvenience, lack of access to physical therapists, and the absence of well-defined MSK clinical pathways, all of which in turn contribute to over prescribed opioids and unnecessary surgeries. We are eager to join Physera in reimagining MSK care.”
