DexCare launched in 2021 in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic as medical care quickly shifted to digital.
Spun out of Providence, the health tech startup uses data intelligence to handle the logistics of digital care delivery. Its software manages health system capacity and appointment booking, matching patients to the right provider, at the right time, and in the right setting.
"We made a bet in the summer of 2020 that all care wasn't going to be virtual. The U.S. healthcare system doesn’t work that way. So we made a bet that care would be multi-modal and that more people will be using virtual care and variations in between and that makes it more complicated for patients and more complicated for providers and health systems," Derek Streat, the company's CEO, who joined in April 2020, said in an interview.
That bet has paid off as the healthcare industry shifts to hybrid care that requires providers to manage in-person visits and telehealth appointments.
"Gone are the days where you just check the box for telehealth and not put any time into it," Streat said. "You need to have a system that will attract and curate audiences into the totality of the health systems’ offerings and you need a decisioning engine for doing that intelligence to match patients to the right care option and optimize capacity. Out of that was born this orchestration platform. We turned out to be made for this moment in healthcare."
DexCare just closed a $75 million series C funding round to accelerate market expansion of its patient demand and care access platform. The startup, one of Fierce Healthcare's Fierce 15 of 2023, currently serves more than 57 million patients across 50 states, and partners with many U.S. health systems, including Kaiser Permanente, Providence and Community Health Network, according to the company.
The new funding brings the total raised to $146 million, including two oversubscribed rounds closed in less than two years.
Streat declined to disclose DexCare's current valuation but said, "It's a very healthy increase from the series B we did in December 2021." The startup announced its $50 million series B funding round in January 2022.
Iconiq Growth led the round with participation from existing investment partners Transformation Capital, Kaiser Permanente Ventures, Define Ventures, Frist Cressey Ventures and SpringRock Ventures.
"We’re just emerging from an unpredictable moment in history that cast a spotlight on a strained U.S. healthcare system,” Streat said. “The trauma caused on the frontlines, as health systems rushed to care for their communities, stressed an already high level of provider and nurse burnout. The pandemic taught us that consumers want convenience and choice, and that health systems need controls to manage the supply of care — DexCare delivers both."
More than 100 million Americans face some kind of care access barrier, a result of rural hospital closures and physician shortages. Health systems are challenged by rising costs that outpace growth and a digital care experience that falls short of post-pandemic consumer expectations.
DexCare's platform enables healthcare systems to forecast and predict demand and manage how and where care is merchandized to consumers. The company's software links multiple digital health applications to meet patient needs with real-time demand aggregation and accessible appointment booking across service lines like same-day and urgent care, as well as across care modalities from in-person to virtual care.
By simplifying large, complex and legacy datasets, DexCare claims that its software can help resolve workforce constraints and provides the tools to coordinate scheduling, across services and modalities, to optimize capacity and operational costs.
Accessing quality care is a two-sided problem. DexCare built a solution that addresses both sides of this equation, said Caroline Xie, general partner at Iconiq Growth.
"On the front end, DexCare’s platform makes finding care as easy as ecommerce. On the back-end, it helps health systems optimize and unlock capacity, which is ultimately better for patient care and more sustainable for health systems," Xie said.
Providence Health’s Digital Innovation Group initially developed the DexCare platform in 2016 to support patient acquisition and navigation. DexCare is the third health-related business to have spun out from the group, following Xealth and Circle, both developed internally at Providence.
DexCare has grown rapidly as it develops partnerships with health systems. As hospitals and health systems face intense financial pressure and resource strain, DexCare claims that its technology has proven to be a driver of growth, boosting new patient bookings by 30%, diverting 350,000 emergency room hours and increasing downstream revenue eightfold.
"We've been growing triple digits for a while now," Streat said, in reference to the company's annual recurring revenue.
Along with expanding to new markets, DexCare also is focused on building out its technology for more service lines and specialty care offerings such as orthopedics and oncology.
"We envision a world where everyone, everywhere can have exceptional access to the best expertise to prevent, treat and cure illness. We're really just scratching the surface," Streat said.
There is a rising demand for consumer-facing health tech. Healthcare is being disrupted as patients now have many choices to receive their care including a Walmart health center, an Amazon clinic, a local hospital or doctor’s office, noted Todd Cozzens, co-founder and managing partner at venture capital firm Transformation Capital.
“DexCare’s consumer experience platform attracts new patients seeking high-value care from providers amidst this new era of choice, and increases the competitive advantage for these providers," Cozzens said in a statement.