Nurx, a startup known for online purchase and delivery of home health tests, birth control and other sensitive treatments for women, has tacked on another $22.5 million in Series C funding.

Closed in May, the raise included new backers Trustbridge, Comcast Ventures and Wittington Ventures, as well as prior backers Union Square Ventures and Kleiner Perkins Digital Growth Fund. This brings the company's total raise to $113 million.

WHAT IT DOES

Nurx made its name through telehealth prescription and delivery of birth control pills, but recently expanded its offerings to include other areas of reproductive health. These include pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) for HIV prevention, as well as sexually transmitted infection testing kits and treatments.

The company says it's currently providing its services to more than 300,000 people monthly, accepting either health insurance or direct payments. It reported a spike of more than 250,000 new patient requests for birth control during the first half of the year, as well as more than double the number of usual requests for PrEP and STI treatment and testing – much of which it attributed to the COVID-19 pandemic.

"As the largest and most trusted digital practice for women's health, our team was well positioned to leverage our momentum over the last year and meet the surge in demand for our services when the COVID-19 pandemic hit and uprooted our healthcare system," Nurx CEO Varsha Rao said in a statement. "I'm proud of our team's dedication to providing our patients with the best care possible so they can remain safely at home."

With this new growth, Nurx predicts that it will reach profitability by the early part of next year.

WHAT IT'S FOR

Nurx said that the funds would help address growing demand for its offerings, and would support the introduction of new services for headaches and migraines that are set to launch later in the month. These would include an online consultation, a video exam to measure cognitive abilities, personalized treatment plans and regular check-ins.

"Over the last few months we've further accelerated our patient growth across all of our services," Rao said. "We're excited to build on our vision of treating and managing more sensitive healthcare needs that carry stigma and largely impact women by launching our migraines and headache service."

MARKET SNAPSHOT

Nurx falls in line with the growing number of consumer-friendly telehealth companies providing discrete mail-order medications, such as Hims & Hers and Ro. In the STI testing space, it competes like myLAB Box and Everlywell.

Both Nurx and the latter group of home health testing startups sought to provide at-home COVID-19 testing shortly after the declaration of a public health emergency in the U.S. This effort proved to be short lived, however, after the FDA clarified that it had not yet approved any diagnostics for home use.