Online Healthcare Startup Ro Lands $500 Million In Venture Funding

Healthcare technology company Ro has raised $500 million, pulling in cash from an array of venture funders. All told, the company said in a press release on Tuesday (March 23), Ro has raised $876 million in funding since it was founded in 2017.

“The current healthcare system is working beautifully for insurance companies — but terribly for patients,” said Zachariah Reitano, Ro’s co-founder and CEO. Through its “integrated platform,” he said, Ro is “making high-quality care available when and where patients need it, with no insurance required.” Reitano noted that Ro is “the only company to combine a nationwide telemedicine, pharmacy distribution, and in-home care network.”

According to the release, Ro will use the newly raised capital to strengthen its primary care platform. Also, the company plans “to expand its pharmacy distribution network … [and to] build new capabilities such as remote patient monitoring with integrated devices, and broaden into additional treatment areas that leverage its diagnostic capabilities.”

Ro is poised to “create an outsized positive impact on how we all access healthcare — both via the internet and at home,” said Hemant Taneja, managing partner at Ro investor General Catalyst. “What Zach and his team have been able to build in less than four years is nothing short of amazing.”

The new round of funding comes after Ro’s December acquisition of Workpath, a software platform that enables healthcare companies to offer in-home care and diagnostic services. Ro said this acquisition has allowed it to “integrate virtual and in-person care on its own platform and offer these in-home capabilities to other healthcare companies.” Last July, Ro reached a valuation of $1.5 billion after a new funding round of $200 million.

Overall, the use of telehealth has skyrocketed during the pandemic. Patients’ use of virtual visits at NYU Langone shot up 4,345 percent between March 2 and April 14, PYMNTS reported. Telehealth experts said at the time that such shifts would not be temporary.

Other venture firms that took part in Ro’s latest funding round include FirstMark Capital, TQ Ventures, SignalFire, Torch Capital and BoxGroup, as well as new investors Altimeter Capital, Baupost Group, Dragoneer Investment Group, ShawSpring Partners, Radcliff and 776.