Carbon Health, a primary care provider combining brick-and-mortar clinics with virtual services, is targeting nationwide expansion with the announcement of a hefty $350 million funding round.
Led by Blackstone’s Horizon platform, the new investment will help the startup capitalize on its pandemic growth and add new technologic capabilities to its existing digital offerings. It also brings the six-year-old provider to a reported valuation of $3.3 billion.
“We believe that everyone deserves great health and that there is still a tremendous opportunity to close the immense healthcare gap that widened during the COVID-19 pandemic,” Eren Bali, co-founder and CEO of Carbon Health, said in a statement. “This investment allows Carbon Health to bring our unique offering of high-end—but not high-cost—healthcare to even more people in the U.S. We will be able to continue building infrastructure and technology that make incredible longitudinal care accessible to the masses, without hidden fees or membership requirements.”
The San Francisco-based startup meets patients across numerous channels to reduce friction and keep them engaged in their care. Alongside access points like its chain of retail clinics and pop-up sites, this strategy extends to app-based virtual care and—as of its June acquisition of Steady Health—device-driven chronic disease management.
The primary care startup’s business has been on an upward trajectory for some time. The company announced two funding rounds last year totaling almost $130 million in investor support.
It has also worked to expand its footprint across the country. Carbon Health said that its patient volume has increased 129% since the November fundraise—and that’s without counting those who turned to the startup’s COVID-19 vaccination or testing services.
Over the course of the pandemic, Carbon Health has doubled its full-time staff from 800 to 1,600 employees, opened over 80 clinics in 12 states and expanded its virtual care services to 23 states, the startup said.
While Carbon Health services are currently available to more than three-quarters of those living in the U.S., the company said it’s looking ahead toward a goal line of 1,500 clinics by 2025 “to become the largest primary care provider in the U.S.”
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Carbon Health’s announcement also reiterated the startup’s interest in expanding the infrastructure of its tech platform and building out new hardware capabilities for products focused on areas like longitudinal care.
“Carbon Health is redefining primary care medicine with the important goal of helping more Americans access high-quality healthcare,” Scott Bommer, chief investment officer of Blackstone’s Horizon platform, said in a statement. “This investment will help Eren and his outstanding team further invest in new technology and products to differentiate and expand their services—all while maintaining an intense focus on how to improve healthcare services for all.”
A long list of institutional and individual investors joined Blackstone's Horizon in the $350 million round.
Those new to the company included Atreides, Homebrew, Hudson Bay Capital, Intersect Capital, Fifth Wall, Lux Capital, Silver Lake Waterman and funds and accounts managed by BlackRock.
Returning backers Dragoneer Investment Group and Brookfield Technology Partners participated as well, as did Amazon’s David Clark, Salesforce’s Parker Harris and Magdalena Yesil, Stripe’s Karim Temsamani, activists Shepard and Amanda Fairey and athletes Klay Thompson, Khris Middleton, Nolan Arenado, Matt Chapman, Weston McKinnie and Alex Smith.
Carbon Health’s pandemic growth story is shared by others in the tech-enabled primary care provider space.
Forward Health, founded five years ago by ex-Googlers, brought in $225 million back in March to open new locations for its biomarker-based primary care offices across the nation. One Medical also signaled new market expansions and a 54% year-over-year quarterly revenue increase during its May earnings call but has recently faced pushback from unionizing employees alleging poor pay and mistreatment.