Remote Care Startup K Health Valued at Over $1.4 Billion

(Bloomberg) -- K Health raised $132 million in a funding round led by GGV Capital and Valor Equity Partners after the Covid-19 pandemic led to a surge in use for remote health-care apps.

The New York-based firm was valued at $1.4 billion just before securing the new funds, Chief Executive Officer Allon Bloch said in an interview. Kaiser Permanente’s pension fund and LTS Investments also invested.

K Health’s app uses artificial intelligence to scour anonymous patient records from databases in Israel and the U.S. to help diagnose diseases. For a fee, users can also connect to K Health’s 200 doctors who treat patients via their mobiles.

“When people are not feeling well, they’ve got 3 questions: what is it, what else could it be and what are all the different ways to treat it?” Bloch said. “We added a services layer because people don’t only want to know the answer to these 3 questions, but they also want a medical resolution.”

The Covid-19 pandemic boosted the telemedicine industry as more people opted for virtual sessions with physicians to avoid public spaces. While Bloch estimates the use of these technologies accounts for just 2% of U.S. appointments, analysts expect rapid growth in the coming years.

K Health’s revenue jumped tenfold in the past year into the “tens of millions” of dollars, Bloch said, declining to specify further.

More than 4 million Americans have used the app, and about 500,000 have signed up for paid services, Bloch said. K Health’s monthly membership costs $9, while a one-time session runs $19. By way of comparison, an average visit to a doctor in the U.S. ranges from $100 to $200.

The company handles a few hundred conditions, such as rashes, dental infections and indigestion, and will use the new cash to expand into other conditions such as diabetes and hypertension, Bloch said.

K Health has agreements with the Mayo Clinic and Maccabi Healthcare Services, Israel’s second-largest health-maintenance organization, to feed patient data into the company’s machine learning software. K Health plans to expand into Latin America this year, Bloch said.