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98point6 Raises $50M Series C to Reimagine Primary Care
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Primary care in America is in crisis. Inaccessibility, shrinking resources and rising costs are causing people across numerous socio-economic groups to weigh the cost of a doctor's visit against the value of their health. The majority of us have innovative technology literally at our fingertips, making the lack of change in our primary care system all the more frustrating.
In this Podcast, Robbie Cape, CEO and Co-founder of 98point6, discusses the future of health and telemedicine. Plus, he dives into the music that drives his kids crazy and his love of knitting.
The relationship between company culture and how developers approach technical challenges tends to be cyclical — one informs the other, and vice versa. The four tech companies featured here encourage their developers to think outside the box in a variety of ways, including regular brainstorming sessions, team-building exercises, a healthy dose of autonomy, collaboration across disciplines and — this being Seattle — industrial quantities of coffee.
Robbie Cape, CEO and Co-founder of 98point6, passionately believes everyone deserves excellent, affordable primary care. He co-founded 98point6 in 2015 to harness the power of technology to improve both access and the quality of care. According to Robbie, "At 98point6, we’ve set the audacious goal to help every single human on this earth have access to quality primary care without the sacrifice of a financial trade-off."
Ever since house calls fell out of favor, most medical care has been delivered in hospitals and doctor's offices. But apply smartphones and AI to the situation, and that need not be the case, at least not for primary care. The company 98point6, for one, wants to take primary care virtual, through text conversations.
98point6, a primary care telehealth startup based in Seattle, has raised $50 million from investors, The Seattle Times reports. Check out the four key things you need to know about the company.
Health care startup 98point6 has raised $50 million in Series C funding, bringing the company's total amount raised to more than $86 million. The round was led by Goldman Sachs, which 98point6 has been eyeing as an investor since its founding in 2015. 98point6 will use the funding to continue scaling out its on-demand primary care service and expand its headcount. “You will see us accelerating the speed with which we introduce new capabilities into the 98point6 platform,” Cape said. “Having these sorts of dollars behind us enables us to continue to maintain our focus on quality even as we’re scaling and building new features.”
98point6 has been one of the game changers in healthcare by providing care through messaging. The company today announced that it has successfully raised $50 million in a new round of funding, led by the Merchant Banking Division of Goldman Sachs. 98point6 also claims that their users experience a 97 percent in-app resolution rate. Commenting on the investment, Goldman Sachs’ Global head of healthcare investing said: “We are excited to partner with 98point6 because they are dedicated to improving the physician and patient experience—empowering board-certified physicians with technology to enhance care delivery and drive patient engagement”.
98point6, a Seatle-based digital health startup focused on reimaging primary care today announced it has raised $50 million in Series C funding led by Merchant Banking Division of Goldman Sachs and existing investors. Primary care is a necessity for all, serving as the front line for healthcare and disease prevention. To provide patients with primary care anytime and anywhere, 98point6 leverages machine learning and automation, helping doctors optimize and complete tasks that don’t require direct physician interaction.
Let’s not beat around the bush here: we pay far too much for healthcare in the United States. Who among us hasn’t stayed at home — or even gone into work when they really should have been with their GP — simply because they couldn’t stomach the cost? But what if, for a small yearly fee, you could simply text with a physician, even if you couldn’t make it into a practice or afford insurance? That audacious vision of the future is closer than you might think, as 98point6 today announced a $50 million Series C for a primary care platform that connects a team of laptop-side physicians and an AI assistant with the masses — all through our phones.
Seattle startup 98point6, whose app lets consumers consult with a primary-care doctor via text messages, has raised $50 million from investors. The service costs $20 for the first year, then increases to $120 annually, and does not require insurance. “It’s one thing to be nimble and be scrappy, and it’s another thing to be delivering the highest quality of health care,” he said. “We need to be delivering the highest quality of health care, and substantial funding enables us to do that.”
In New York, Boston, Seattle, Houston, San Diego, and 10 other major cities across the U.S., the average wait time to see a cardiologist for a non-emergency issue is six days or longer, while an orthopedic surgeon can take up to 18 days. Moreover, as many as 30 million Americans don’t live within an hour of trauma care. Seattle startup 98point6, which exited beta in May after three years in incubation, aims to fill the coverage gap with digital clinics — with the help of artificial intelligence (AI). Today, the startup announced a $50 million Series C funding round led by Goldman Sachs and undisclosed return backers, bringing the total amount raised to $86.3 million.
98point6, a Seattle-based startup developing an entirely virtual primary care service, has raised $50 million in a round led by Goldman Sachs’ Merchant Banking Division. The new funds, announced Tuesday morning, bring the company’s total raised to a whopping $86.3 million in just over three years. “The round itself is a reflection of our execution to date and the momentum that we’ve built,” said longtime Seattle entrepreneur Robbie Cape, 98point6 CEO and co-founder, in an interview with GeekWire. “What it enables is all of the growth that’s coming as a result of that momentum.”
98point6, a digital health company that makes primary care doctors available to patients over cellphone messages, raised $50 million in a new financing round led by Goldman Sachs. Its platform uses artificial intelligence to automate the tasks that don’t require direct physician interaction, such as gathering information on symptoms, before turning the conversation over to a doctor for a diagnosis or to answer health questions. The app also maintains a care plan alongside ordered prescriptions and lab tests.
98point6 announced this morning that it has closed $50 million in Series C funding, bringing the company’s total backing to $86.1 million. Robbie Cape, 98point6’s CEO and cofounder, told MobiHealthNews that the new investment will help his company achieve three main goals: scaling and expanding the platform to meet “overwhelming demand;” introducing “an exciting roadmap of capabilities” to provide each patient a more complete continuity of care; and ensuring that the care provided to patients through the platform is of high quality.
The 2018 GeekWire Summit was our biggest event yet, an action-packed national tech conference that explored what’s next in the innovation economy and brought together more than 800 business, tech, media and government leaders. 98point6 CEO, Robbie Cape, spoke on a panel discussing the future of primary care.
The industry of telemedicine is at a tipping point, expanding far beyond interactions between physicians and patients into entirely new ways to deliver healthcare and practice medicine. In recognition of this phenomenon, Phoenix-based Banner Health, a trendsetter with a robust history employing this technology, will scrap the term telemedicine in the future and employ the expression virtual health.
If you’re a woman working in the tech industry, odds are you’re outnumbered by men at your company — in some cases, by a pretty substantial ratio. And simply hiring more women doesn’t exactly mean gender inequality has been solved. In this article, women share the lessons they’ve learned in their own career journeys and to fill us in on what their companies are doing to eliminate the gender gap.
Amazon's latest endeavor is a plan for in-house healthcare clinics, which will reportedly be piloted at its headquarters in Seattle. Other primary care solutions are going even further: Seattle startup 98point6 gives users unlimited access to primary care doctors through its entirely tech-based “virtual clinic.”
It’s been a big year in Seattle tech so far, with a fresh crop of startups leveraging artificial intelligence, big data, breakthrough security strategies and more to transform industries of all stripes. Seattle has always been a hub for medicine, and healthcare startups are well represented here.
In 15 of the largest U.S. cities, patients waited an average of 24 days to schedule an appointment with their physician — a wait they could skip if they opted for virtual visits and telehealth, according to CNBC.
If you need to see a doctor, you’d better plan ahead. A 2017 survey found 24 days was the average wait time in 15 of the largest cities to schedule a physician appointment.The long waits are a result of a growing shortage of primary care physicians, along with an aging population requiring more health care.
98point6 CEO Robbie Cape sits down with “On the Money” to discuss on-demand primary care, and how 98point6 is delivering high-quality care at an affordable cost.
Seattle-based health care technology company 98point6 has introduced a mobile app, based on a machine-learning program, to 11 states including New Jersey.
After three years of R&D and a year of beta, 98point6 has announced the launch of its on-demand primary care service to deliver personalized consultation, diagnosis and treatment to patients across the country. The on-demand primary care platform combines innovative AI technology with board-certified physicians to deliver affordable and high-quality care right to a patient’s smartphone.
Artificial intelligence is only getting more powerful. Today, we’re able to build computer programs that can master complex strategy games and even hold natural-feeling conversations.
In mid-April I decided to do something I hadn’t done in years: see a doctor. My cough had gotten so bad that I couldn’t avoid it any longer. After work, I walked into my local urgent care center for the first time and filled out some paperwork.
Imagine you have a minor health problem — say, an earache. Then imagine you open an app, message a doctor and have a prescription to treat it delivered to your local pharmacy in minutes. Sound like a fantasy?
Getting a prescription for antibiotics or cold medicine could be just a few text messages away, if Seattle startup 98point6 has anything to say about it. The company announced Tuesday it is expanding its virtual primary care service to adults nationwide this year, after testing in Washington state for the past year.
About seven months after Seattle startup 98point6 finally announced what it was up to, it is launching its digital primary care service nationally. “Ultimately, we are setting out to solve the major primary care crisis in the United States,” founder and CEO Robbie Cape said. “What we’ve done is married the highest quality medicine with deep technology investments in order to deliver the highest quality, most accessible primary care.”