Better Health, a peer-to-peer medical supply and support provider, announced June 13 that it has secured $14 million in strategic funding.
The investment round was led by Healthworx, the innovation and investment arm of CareFirst Inc., UHealth – University of Miami Health System, and Mosaic General Partnership.
This latest funding round builds on Better Health’s previous $10 million Series A and includes participation from new investor Samsung Next. Existing investors, including Caffeinated Capital, General Catalyst, Table Management, and at.inc/, also participated.
The infusion of capital now brings the company’s total funding to $27.5 million.
Co-founded by Naama Stauber Breckler and Adam Breckler, Better Health operates in 48 states and serves the members of top payers, including Medicare, Medicaid, Cigna, Humana, Florida Blue and Oscar, among others.
Stauber Breckler told HME Business that the funding will be used to bring a more comprehensive solution to payers and providers while expanding into new categories to better serve members with chronic conditions.
“Our goal is to meet people where they are, and we know there are a lot of people out there who are searching for such services online,” she said. “We also know that the majority of people look to their doctor or their payer to find someone who would help and support them. So we’ve been really focused on building our B2B channels, partnerships with managed care, partnerships with payers, and partnerships with health systems and referring providers to help and support their patients and their teams.”
Stauber Breckler said with this funding, Better Health’s goal is to continue to expand services to all of their stakeholders.
“This means, obviously, our members and patients, but also providers and payers,” she said. “We aim to continue building different tools that make working with Better Health easier, faster, and more efficient. This will include adding different AI capabilities to speed up and shorten processes.”
As of late, it has been difficult for health-care startups to secure additional capital, with venture capital firms operating more conservatively in a tricky macro-economic environment.
In Q1 2024, U.S. digital health funding closed with $2.7 billion across 133 deals, with an average deal size of $20.6 million, according to data from Rock Health.
“Q1 2024 was the lowest first quarter by sector funding since 2019, noteworthy given that Q1 was the top-funded quarter of the entire year in 2022 and 2023,” Rock Health wrote in a quarterly update.
Although health care has seen a dip in venture capital investment, Stauber Breckler said that with the right evidence and traction, there are opportunities to attract funding.
“I think a lot of investors out there still have the funds and are excited about deploying them, but they’re being much more cautious and conservative, both in terms of how long the processes take and evaluations,” she said.
Stauber Breckler said that in this funding round, Better Health concentrated on attracting investors with a strong focus on health care. The company aimed to bring in new strategic investors from the care and health system sectors, in addition to Mosaic, which is also focused on health care investments.
“So we knew that health care, as you know, is more complicated than other areas, and I think you really need an investor who understands and is also comfortable with the regulatory aspects and the time some of these things take,” she said.