Health tech funding snapshot—Bright Health lands $500M to expand into employer-based insurance; PicnicHealth scores $25M

PicnicHealth was founded to help patients with chronic or complex illnesses gain control of their medical records and more effectively navigate their healthcare.

The startup expanded with the launch of the PicnicHealth Research Platform, which allows patients to give consent to share their de-identified data with researchers

In early September, PicnicHealth landed a $25 million Series B led by Felicis Ventures.

That funding is on top of a previously-unannounced $10 million Series A led by Amplify Partners in 2018. Amplify also participated in the Series B.

PicnicHealth will use the new funding to move into new disease areas, expanding access to the platform to more patients while building new research data sets. The company will also focus on building engineering, machine learning, and clinical informatics capacity to scale its regulatory-grade data pipeline. 

The investment comes on the heels of PicnicHealth’s recently-announced partnership with Roche and Genentech. Several of the world’s largest biopharma companies already rely on PicnicHealth for data that powers their medical research.

To date, PicnicHealth has helped tens of thousands of patients by porting their records from any doctor or electronic medical record in the United States into a single, secure online account.

PicnicHealth works directly with patients to give them the only tool anywhere that truly provides all of their medical records from any doctor or healthcare system in the US—in an easy-to-use, secure online dashboard.

Here’s a snapshot of other health IT funding deals of $25 million or more in September:

  • Insurance startup: Bright Health scored a $500 million Series E funding round. Investment firms Tiger Global Management, T Rowe Price and Blackstone led the funding round. New Enterprise Associates also participated in the recent investment. To date, Bright Health has raised more than $1.5 billion.
  • Personal healthcare assistant: Grand Rounds scored a $175 million funding round led by The Carlyle Group. The company said it will use the funds to accelerate clinical navigation and virtual primary care. Grand Rounds uses data and algorithms to match employees with providers and health-related services and is now used by more than 6 million workers at companies such as Walmart, Home Depot, Salesforce, Travelers, and other firms.
  • Healthcare automation: On the heels of a $51 million funding round in March, Olive secured $106 million in financing led by an equity investment from General Catalyst and Drive Capital along with Ascension Ventures, Oak HC/FT and SVB Capital. 
  • Remote monitoring: Digital therapeutics startup Biofourmis just closed a $100 million funding round led by high-profile investor Softbank's Vision Fund 2. The company combines AI-based data analytics and biosensors to monitor the progress of medical treatment. Returning investors Openspace Ventures, MassMutual Ventures, Sequoia Capital and EDBI also participated in the Series C financing round.
  • Pharmacy fulfillment: Pharmacy services startup Truepill closed a $75M million series C funding round to expand into at-home lab testing. Oak HC/FT led the round with backing from existing investors Optum Ventures, TI Platform Management, Sound Ventures and YCombinator. The company has raised $114 million from investors to date.
  • Home healthcare: Ready, an on-demand health care startup that delivers home- and community-based services, snapped up $54 million in Series C funding. The investors in its latest funding round include GV, the venture capital arm of Alphabet Inc., the parent company of Google, Deerfield Management Company, City Light Capital, Town Hall Ventures, and Frist Cressey Ventures.
  • Telehealth innovator: MDLive banked a $50 million crossover equity investment led by Sixth Street Growth with plans to build out its virtual primary care services. In a separate deal, MDLive also raised $25 million in debt expansion from other investors.
  • Pediatric telehealth: Startup Hazel Health scored a $33.5 million Series C funding round led by Owl Ventures and Bain Capital Ventures. Investors Uprising, UCSF Foundation Investment Company, and Centene Corporation also participated in the round.
  • Medical device security: Medigate banked $30 million to expand its healthcare IoT security technology. Partech led the round, which also saw participation from Maor Investments and prior backers YL Ventures, U.S. Venture Partners and Blumberg Capital.
  • Medical education: SketchyMedical, which creates animate sketches to help medical students memorize complex information, banked a $30 million majority-stake investment from The Chernin Group (TCG). The investment will be used to scale visual education company’s growth and establish an in-house studio for live content and animation for tackling new subjects.