Counsel Health, a virtual healthcare practice focused on message-based care, has launched with $11 million in seed funding in a round led by Andreessen Horowitz ("a16z") Bio + Health.

Floodgate Fund, Asymmetric Capital Partners, Pear VC and numerous healthcare startup founders participated in the round. 

WHAT IT DOES

The company offers an AI-enabled asynchronous care platform that provides medical advice from real clinicians to patients via messaging.

The service is available 24/7, and patients can use the platform to receive answers to complex medical questions, seek urgent care, obtain second opinions and receive assistance with end-of-life decisions. 

Senior physicians and engineers from Harvard Medical School, Massachusetts General Hospital, NVIDIA, Mount Sinai, Stanford and the MIT Media Lab founded Counsel Health in 2023. 

The platform is available in New York, California, Florida, Texas and Massachusetts. The company plans to expand to all 50 states over the next two years.

Counsel Health will use the funds to enhance its technology, scale its growth and expand coverage for more users. 

MARKET SNAPSHOT

Numerous digital health companies offer message-based healthcare assistance to patients. 

Shortly after acquiring the telemedicine company HeyDoctor in 2019, prescription cost savings company GoodRx announced it was launching its virtual care platform GoodRx Care, powered by HeyDoctor.  

GoodRx Care offers text-based consultations for various health issues, including prescriptions and lab work, which allows patients to chat with doctors anytime.

CirrusMD is a startup offering on-demand, text-first telehealth, and 98point6 offers text-based virtual care that uses an AI chatbot to collect and relay health information to a provider, who can then manage care.