The $45m raised by US-based patient management platform provider Welltok last week indicates the increasing attention being granted to health management technology as companies aim to increase efficiency in the sector.
Welltok received the series E funding from mobile chip manufacturer Qualcomm, Georgian Partners, Flare Capital Partners and the Singapore government-backed EDBI. It has now raised about $128m in total since it was founded in 2009.
Welltok is the developer of the CafeWell Health Optimization Platform, which uses analytics to organise resources governing health improvement and illness management resources. The software allows the managers of health plans, government initiatives and large employers to more easily engage and potentially reward users for healthy behaviour.
The cash helped to fund the acquisition of healthcare consumer communications business Silverlink, and Wellltok plans to use Silverlink’s proactive engagement software, as well as its experience in behavioural science and consumer marketing, to extend the capabilities of its own platform.
The purchase of Silverlink is the third acquisition to be made this year by Welltok, which closed a $37m series D round in January, as it seeks to expand. The company bought predictive healthcare analytics developer Predilytics in May and family-focused health optimisation technology provider Zamzee in October.
Welltok raised the funding the day after another patient management platform, Evariant, secured $42.3m in a series C round that will support the expansion of its engineering, services and customer success teams. Another competitor, Kyruus, raised $25m in a series C round in September this year, while Evolent went public in a $195m initial public offering in June.
Perhaps significantly, none of the companies are spring chickens in a startup context – Welltok, Evariant and Kyruus are all over five years old and Evariant was founded back in 2008.
However, US healthcare providers and plans are increasingly looking to employ a value-based approach that makes care provision more efficient while also encouraging members to lead healthier lifestyles that will in theory reduce the need for care at the other end.
The expansion of health insurance expenditure in the US due to the introduction of ‘Obamacare’ is expected to continue through 2020, which means growth in the market is likely to be substantial, in the US at least. International growth may well be slower.
None of the patient management platforms have announced plans to expand overseas to any significant degree, which is perhaps understandable given the healthcare industry’s relatively unique structure in the US and the individual differences in each country’s care provision.
Although the health insurance industry is less developed in other countries there is still space for efficiency, however, and Welltok and its peers will sooner or later have to look at tailoring their solutions for individual markets if they want to maintain growth in the longer term.