Digital health company Truepill scored $142 million in Series D financing from existing investors Initialized Capital and TI Platform Management.

The company said the new funding brings its total raise to $256 million and its valuation to $1.6 billion. Truepill announced a $75 million Series C in September 2020, just a few months after it brought in $25 million in Series B funding. 

WHAT THEY DO

Truepill offers businesses such as digital health companies, payers, pharma manufacturers and other healthcare entities services like telehealth, a virtual pharmacy, prescription shipping and fulfillment, and diagnostics, including COVID-19 mitigation tools for employers. 

“When we started Truepill in 2016, we set out to revolutionize the patient experience from the backend and, in the process, created the defining platform for digital consumer healthcare,” Umar Afridi, CEO and cofounder of Truepill, said in a statement.

“No matter what program they’re building, our partners can pick the components they want, tailor a solution to their specific needs and scale up operations as they grow. Our flexible B2B model truly creates limitless possibilities for the future of consumer health, and we’re excited to continue deepening our work within the broader healthcare ecosystem.”

WHAT IT’S FOR

The new investment will let Truepill focus on expanding its reach and services to a variety of healthcare companies. It plans to hire new workers in roles including engineering, business development and pharmacy.

The company also aims to open six new pharmacy and OTC fulfillment centers by early next year in California, Illinois, Michigan, North Carolina, Ohio and Pennsylvania. 

“The last year has made it abundantly clear that consumer-friendly health experiences are a universal need — whether you’re a healthcare company modernizing how you treat patients, an insurance provider looking to create better e-commerce offerings or simply an employer trying to create a safe work environment,” Sid Viswanathan, president and cofounder of Truepill, said in a statement.

“Now that Truepill’s infrastructure is firmly in place across telehealth, diagnostics and pharmacy, we are focused on partnering with companies of all shapes, sizes and specialties to build innovative healthcare programs — whether it’s insurance-backed DTC prescriptions, a return-to-office COVID-19 testing platform or beyond.”

MARKET SNAPSHOT

Truepill got its start in the pharmacy space, but has since expanded into other areas in digital health. In June, it launched a virtual pharmacy option and it announced a digital primary care offering in May. 

In March, the company revealed a suite of COVID-19 diagnostics and digital tools geared toward employers looking to bring their workers back into offices, clinics or manufacturing sites.

"It was always part of our playbook to expand from pharmacy and telehealth into diagnostics, because when you start to treat some of the chronic conditions in our country today, whether it is diabetes or cholesterol or hypertension, oftentimes to do that over a virtual setting, your doctor needs a lab test," Viswanathan told MobiHealthNews at the time.

"If I'm going to prescribe cholesterol medication and I'm a doctor, I need to see a lipid panel for a patient, so for us it … [was] an extension of our core pillars."