Symptom Checker, K Health Raises $48m in Series C Financing

Primary health app developer, K Health has raised $48 million in a Series C financing round led by 14W and Mangrove Capital with participation from Anthem, Lerer Hippeau and Primary Venture Partners.

The New York City and Tel Aviv, Israel-headquartered company said it will use the funds to scale its model, expand primary care to mobile devices, and expand to international markets. The funds will also be used to translate the platform into Spanish.

“This new funding will enable us to bring easy and affordable primary care to people in more languages and geographies. We will also be expanding the scope of what our primary care platform can diagnose and treat to include more chronic condition management services, pediatrics, and more,” Allon Bloch, K Health’s founder and Chief Executive Officer, said.

Mark Tluszcz, founder and CEO of Mangrove Capital Partners, said: “K’s efforts to provide the most precise and relevant medical information along with 24/7 medical care and doctor conversations … underscores the need for better healthcare realities for people struggling to afford care and the medical community challenged by a lack of doctor accessibility.”

The latest fund raising brings to $97 million the amount that the startup has raised following previous corporate rounds for which K Health raised $15 million. Last July, the company, which was founded in 2016, raised $12 million.  The latest fundraising brings its valuation to an estimated $200 million.

How K Health works

K Health, which is primarily a symptom checker, operates via an app that allows patients to check their symptoms and chat with a doctor. Through the use of artificial intelligence, K Health’s platform ingests medical histories, clinical outcomes, and the collective experience of more than 10,000 doctors to deliver treatment information on hundreds of diseases.

The FINSMES website explained that the app asks questions about symptoms and accounts for age, gender, and medical history as it investigates the health of a user. Using AI, K Health’s platform compares data from the symptom checker with billions of health records and drug statistics that have been collected over the course of more than 20 years by the Israeli healthcare service, Maccabi

It is also able to compare those results with those of people in the same demographic group who were diagnosed and treated by doctors when they were in the same situation.

Through the app, users are able to chat with a physician for a diagnosis, get advice, receive prescriptions and order lab tests. In a world where privacy is a serious concern, K Health insists that its platform uses anonymized data to make the app smarter.  The company states that it will never sell, rent, or share personal health information.

K Health provides a primary care visit via text for $19/visit (or unlimited for $39/year) with free follow-ups over two weeks. The platform also offers treatment for anxiety and depression, the Telecareaware website reported.The symptom checker is available throughout the U.S. and primary care visits are offered in 47 states.

The company has signed 3 million active users onto its app. In future, K Health plans to expand its services to include those with chronic illnesses, high blood pressure, diabetes, oncology, cardiology, and pediatrics.

“K uses technology to reduce barriers to quality primary care. Our users are able to get instant answers about their symptoms and chat with a doctor within minutes, all for 90 percent less than the cost of traditional primary care practices,” Bloch was quoted as having said.

Partnerships drive K Health

The VentureBeat website reported that K Health is funded in part by the Maccabi and Morris Kahn Institute for Research and Innovation, the tech incubation arm of Tel Aviv, Israel-based health maintenance organization (HMO) Maccabi Health.

Last year, Anthem, which is also an investor, announced that it was partnering with K Health to launch a co-branded app to help the insurance provider’s members determine potential diagnoses and text with physicians for medical advice. The partnership is seen as one of the startup’s major drivers.

In 2019, it was reported that K Health had partnered with about 40 healthcare providers in New York City to enable patients to book physical appointments and remote consultations via its app.

K Health is in the same space with on-demand primary care startup, 98point6, which last year announced that its app was now available in all 50 states and Washington D.C. The telemedicine market is growing rapidly, with estimates saying the North American telemedicine market is expected to reach $9.49 billion by 2024.

In 2018, Walgreens launched Find Care Now, which it described as a “digital platform and marketplace that helps connect our millions of mobile and online visitors to health care services at our stores and to a growing selection of recognized providers in the community.”

In 2018, Enzyme Health announced its entry into the sector with a $1.7 million seed funding round.

You can read our ultimate guide to telemedicine – one of the greatest health innovations of the 21st century here.