Direct-to-Consumer Health Startups: What We Look For at Inflect
By Lindsay Kriger
We have been seeing the consumerization of healthcare over the last decade. The recent acquisition of One Medical by Amazon is just one of the latest signals in a growing trend around direct-to-consumer health. Up until relatively recently, most healthtech startups devoted little focus on the consumer. There’s now a massive industry for products focused on increasing patient satisfaction and increased access to care.
However, the terms “satisfaction and access” are dated and do not speak to the true needs of a 21st century consumer. At Inflect, we’re being approached by — and are seeking partnerships with — companies focused on holistic, integrated, and above all authentic whole-person care. Doubtless this is part of the smartphone era’s “app-ification of everything” trend, which was then accelerated by the COVID epidemic.
Much of this trend, however, speaks to the current state of US healthcare. As so many have also experienced, I’ve recently had to seek care in a broken system. The raw fact is that when most of us navigate traditional healthcare, it can feel antiquated, lacking coordination and connectivity, let alone empathy. My healthcare provider colleagues at Inflect have personally seen this shortcoming from the physician’s point of view, too, frustrated at only being able to see each patient for 10 minutes or less — and then off they go, back onto the conveyor belt.
This is definitely not the fault of health practitioners themselves, who are doing their best to serve patients in an over-taxed system. And the system largely works well in times of crisis, after a car accident or another emergency; we have amazing care teams and health technology for these situations. But what we sorely lack is health services that care for patients’ preventative and long-term needs, and the integration of physical and mental health.
There’s just so much opportunity to innovate around the existing system, to allow for human connection, where the provider and patient relationship can be far more closely in sync. At the highest level, no one really wants to be called a “patient”; we want to be treated like a whole person.
What We Look for in Direct-to-Consumer Startups
While we’re bullish on direct-to-consumer healthtech startups, we also have high standards around what qualifies; there’s so many consumer “health” apps that are more or less fluff. For this category to grow, it must show real improvements to wellness.
Here’s some of the key features we look for when deciding which of these startups to fund:
We believe in the consumerization of healthcare, but also want to bring along traditional health. Consumerization is important, but all too often in wellness apps, actual health experts are secondary. We invest in companies that empower the consumer on a product level, but are also advised and influenced by traditional medicine from the very start.
The lived experience of care workers matters. We highly recommend having clinicians on the leadership team — and people who are still practicing medicine now, not 20 years ago. These professionals are much more likely to recognize and advise for the best product-market fit in healthcare.
We’ve been fortunate enough to provide funding and incubation for a wide number of truly impressive direct-to-consumer startups. As a snapshot for the kind of companies we believe will transform health in this space, they include:
- Arcascope: Sleep scientists building digital treatments that use cutting edge circadian (sleep) science, with their first app Shift addressing the chronic sleep issues experienced by millions of shift workers.
- Healthful: Founded by some of Vituity’s finest clinicians working on the frontlines, Healthful works with care teams to carry out a personalized plan for each patient — including appointment scheduling, resource recommendations, obtaining financial assistance, even transportation.
- TRIPP: Creator of research-based virtual reality and augmented reality experiences designed to improve well-being. TRIPP delivers wellness solutions to Fortune 1000 companies, hospitals/clinics, and direct-to-consumer on VR gaming platforms.
- Mate Fertility: Founded by fertility doctors to make the path to parenthood more accessible and much less complex and costly, it brings all the necessary fertility resources under one roof.
- Seven Starling: Next generation of mental health care, for every stage of motherhood.
Taken together, these startups represent our highest mission at Inflect: We’re not trying to make the current system better; we want to help create a new ecosystem for holistic health and wellness.
If you suspect your own startup or app might integrate well with what we’re building, we’d love to talk. Get in touch with us — our contact form is at the bottom of our About page.
Lindsay Kriger, MPH is the Director of Operations at Inflect Health, Vituity’s Transformation and Innovation Division, where she oversees all components of new program development efforts, including the financial viability of all early stage investments. Lindsay previously worked at the California Department of Public Health and UCSF, and earned a Bachelor of Science and Master’s degree in Public Health from Indiana University.
