Tia clinches $100M to build out clinics, virtual care as investors bank on women's health startups

Tia, a startup building what it calls a "modern medical home for women," secured a hefty $100 million funding round to scale its virtual and in-person care.

The company says it marks one of the largest series B investments ever for a healthcare company focused on women, signaling Tia’s anti-fragmentation approach helps shift women’s health from “niche” to mass market. The company, founded in 2017, has raised $132 million to date.

Tia aims to serve 100,000 women by 2023. The company also will use the fresh capital to build out more in-person clinics in existing and new markets while expanding its service lines to care for women throughout their entire lives, from puberty to menopause. Tia also plans to announce new markets next year, Carolyn Witte, co-founder and CEO of Tia, told Fierce Healthcare.

Tia currently has physical clinics in New York City and Los Angeles and provides virtual care in Phoenix, with San Francisco soon coming on board.

"We want to be as ubiquitous and accessible as your Whole Foods, to be accessible mass market to women everywhere, online and offline," she said.

The company, which blends in-person care with its brick-and-mortar clinics, represents the future of women's health and healthcare more broadly, Witte said.

"Pre COVID, 100% of our services were delivered in person, and we then shifted 60% of care delivered virtually. Now, the future of the model is a hybrid world and connecting the moments in between," Witte said. "The market has really responded with a resounding 'yes.' Twelve months ago, people were saying 'The doctor’s office is dead, and telehealth is the future.' But telehealth alone isn’t the answer. It’s about connected care."

While Tia is virtual-first, with 60% of care delivered virtually, the provider allows for women to see a provider in person when they need it.

RELATED: CommonSpirit Health teams up with startup Tia to open women's health clinics 

Tia’s care model fuses primary, mental health and gynecological care with other evidence-based wellness services such as acupuncture in one seamless, coordinated and integrated experience, giving women a "one-stop-shop" for all their healthcare needs, according to Tia executives.

Even though women make up a larger portion of the population and control more than 80% of the $3.6 trillion annual healthcare spend, female patients been grossly misunderstood and underserved, according to Tia executives. The healthcare system has fragmented women’s health care by body part or life stage, investing in an ineffective point-solution-driven model that doesn’t support their whole health. Women of reproductive age spend 90% more than men of the same age on healthcare, even as women’s health outcomes worsen across every metric—from maternal mortality and autoimmune disorders to anxiety and depression.

Women of color, in particular, experience well-documented disparities in care and health outcomes. To address this, Tia executives point out that more than 50% of Tia’s care team and 40% of Tia’s patients identify as people of color.

Improving women's health care is a challenge Tia and a handful of other women's health startups are trying to solve by disrupting the model.

Tia also partners with health systems to ensures continuity of high-quality care beyond its four walls, Witte said.

Earlier this year, the company signed its first major partnership with a national health system to co-launch more locations nationally. Tia is collaborating with CommonSpirit Health, which operates 137 hospitals and more than 1,000 clinics, to launch Tia-branded women's health clinics that will provide blended virtual and in-person care. 

"We aim to be a one-stop-shop, but there are things we don’t do. There's a singular problem we’re trying to solve, and that's fragmentation. Women are often stuck in the middle between seeing specialists and inpatient, outpatient care. Let's look at pregnancy—we’re not in the baby delivery business. By partnering with health systems, we can provide outpatient integrated pregnancy care and integrate that into the inpatient experience," Witte said.

The health system partnerships expand on Tia’s insurance offerings, enabling even more women to access Tia’s services in-network, Witte said.

"The third piece is financial support. We create joint ventures to scale our footprint and fill more care gaps," she noted.

RELATED: Maven Clinic nabs $110M funding round and a boost from Oprah to reach unicorn status

Tia's hefty funding round was led by Lone Pine Capital with additional participation from other investors including Threshold, Define Ventures, Torch Capital, ACME, Compound, Combine, The Helm, Human Ventures, Seae Ventures and Gingerbread Capital. 

“Tia has created a holistic model that unlocks better and more focused care for the largest population of healthcare consumers in the U.S.—women,” said Kelly Granat, portfolio manager at Lone Pine Capital, in a statement. “Just two years since treating its first female patient, Tia has proven it can be the leading and most trusted healthcare partner for women by building better, lasting relationships with them over the course of their entire lives.”

Growing interest, investment in women's health

As part of the digital health boom, there's a growing list of companies focusing on women's health issues, and more specifically hormonal health, such as Modern Fertility, Veera Health and Perla Health. Early-stage New York-based startup Allara Health has launched out of stealth to jump into this market with millions in investor backing.

Maven Clinic, a female-founded company focused on women's and family health, also recently banked a major $110 million funding round and reached unicorn status, a first for the sector.

Its $110 million series D funding round also was backed by a female investor, Deena Shakir, partner at Lux Capital, and got a boost from Orpah Winfrey as a new backer.

Tia focuses its services on the "whole woman" rather than treating women by body part or reproductive stage, Witte said.

Tia's care model, which engages women early on and focuses on integrated, preventive health, has been shown to reduce the cost of care by up to 40% as compared to a typical primary care practice, the company said.

More than half of Tia’s patients use two or more preventive care service lines, and mental health is the fastest-growing service.

The company also is building a profitable primary care model, according to Witte. "We are able to retain the most valuable customer in healthcare, women, and women’s health care is no longer niche. Why do health systems want to partner with us? More outpatient experiences make primary care profitable, and it's something that a health system doesn’t know how to do," she said.