Sprinter Health Raises $33M in Series A Funding to Eliminate Barriers to Healthcare Through In-Home Lab Draws, Vitals Checks and COVID-19 Testing
Andreessen Horowitz led the round with participation from General Catalyst, Accel, Google Ventures (GV) and other leading investors
Sprinter Health, an on-demand mobile health company that sends full-time nurses and phlebotomists (“Sprinters”) into the home for convenient and affordable lab draws, vitals checks, and COVID-19 testing, announced $33M in Series A funding, led by Andreessen Horowitz (“a16z”), with participation from General Catalyst, Accel, Google Ventures (GV), and other leading investors. Julie Yoo from a16z will be joining the board. The innovative healthcare technology company will use the funds to expand its last mile healthcare services into new markets.
Millions of patients embraced telehealth services during the pandemic and many will continue to seek out the convenience of virtual appointments. However, there are limits to what can be done remotely without physical access to a patient. Healthcare conversations between doctors and patients often require lab work, vitals, and more before treatments or services can be prescribed, and time or the ability to get to the office have long stood as barriers to access for many.
Sprinter Health addresses that “last mile” in modern healthcare delivery by making access to the appropriate level of clinician as easy as ordering food delivery.
“People put off healthcare for all sorts of reasons – they think they’re healthy, they can’t find time within their busy schedules, they’re uncertain about the cost, or they may even be afraid to find out that something might be wrong,” said Max Cohen, Sprinter Health Co-founder and CEO. “We’ve built a system that makes getting your blood drawn, vitals checked, or a COVID-19 test as efficient, modern and pleasant as it possibly could be, reducing barriers to people getting necessary care.”
In addition to serving patients directly, Sprinter Health has partnered with leading specialty labs and physician practices to increase adherence to necessary testing without inconvenience of travel or missing work. By matching the right level of licensed clinician to the medical need, Sprinter Health creates an incredibly affordable in-home experience that is a significant shift from the current landscape.
Sprinters follow the Sprinter Checklist, which is customized on behalf of each patient or partner so that the appropriate care can be delivered at the highest quality and with the lowest error rates.
“Every healthcare company has been forced to contemplate its strategy for delivering services in the home, to extend their patient journeys from solely facility-based or virtual-based encounters into continuous relationships that meet patients where they are,” said Julie Yoo, General Partner at a16z. “The world-class team at Sprinter Health has created the infrastructure to democratize access to clinical services in the home that enable just that. We are excited to be backing Max and Cameron as they instrument the last-mile of on-demand care delivery.”
The Sprinter Health team includes experts in healthcare delivery, operations, logistics, and technology who have held leadership roles at Google, Oculus, Facebook, Labcorp, Cricket Health, and Disney. Co-founder and CEO Max Cohen was the former VP of Mobile at Oculus (prior to its acquisition by Facebook in 2014) before holding various product leadership roles at Facebook. Co-founder and CTO Cameron Behar previously held engineering roles at both Facebook and Google. In addition to the leading VC investors who bring their healthcare and logistics expertise to the table, prominent angels also participated in the round, such as Tony Xu (CEO and co-founder of DoorDash), Senator Bill Frist, and other industry leaders. Sprinter Health previously raised a $4.6M seed round in March led by Hemant Taneja at General Catalyst, with angel investors including the Oculus founders, Kevin Lin (co-founder of Twitch), Jason Rubin, John Lagerling, and more.
Sprinter Health will partner with specialty labs, insurance companies, employers, and healthcare providers and systems to improve both the patient experience and health outcomes. “Our plan is to act as doctors’ hands-in-the-home while also leveraging technology to reorient the experience around the patient, extend the reach of telehealth services, and enable a new world of healthcare services,” said Sprinter Health co-founder and CTO Cameron Behar.
Sprinter Health is currently operating in the San Francisco Bay Area and Sacramento in California. Sprinter Health will bring its services to Los Angeles and San Diego by the end of 2021, with plans to expand in both Texas and Florida among other states in 2022.