CVS Health launches $100M digital wellbeing financial commitment fund

CVS Wellbeing has unveiled a $100 million undertaking capital fund targeting early-phase wellness technology businesses.

Identified as CVS Well being Ventures, it will be on the lookout for digital overall health disrupters delivering accessibility, affordability and simplicity to wellness customers, the organization mentioned in its announcement.

“Customers are worthy of a superior overall health expertise, just one that places them at the middle of slicing-edge, digitally enabled remedies,” Karen Lynch, president and CEO of CVS Health and fitness, explained in a assertion. “Forming CVS Well being Ventures will construct on our productive observe document of scaling innovation and driving alter in well being treatment.”

CVS Wellbeing also wishes these startups to be a healthy with the organization’s much larger method. Along with the expense, the enterprise options to assist new associates with strategic skills and insights as they acquire.

Related: 4 of the greatest healthcare trends CVS Wellness states to look at in 2021

“We will construct on this experience by providing money to our startup and enterprise partners and assisting them scale additional rapidly by commercial relationships with our enterprise units,” Josh Flum, govt vice president of enterprise tactic and business enterprise advancement at CVS Wellness, reported in a statement. “This is an fascinating option to speed up innovation and correctly provide new methods to the buyer wellness house.”

This is not the 1st time CVS Wellbeing has opened its checkbook to up-and-coming innovation startups. The corporation has designed far more than 20 investments through the CVS and Aetna sides of its small business that “have shipped consistently strong returns and partnerships,” it stated.

Among the the highlights in this section are social companies technology system Unite Us (with which Aetna has released pilot packages) and connected stage-of-treatment diagnostics corporation LumiraDx.

Electronic wellness providers have been a hotbed for non-public fairness and main health care names alike. Very last calendar year the sector elevated someplace from $14.1 billion to $21.6 billion relying on who was counting, and so far the to start with quarter of 2021 is signaling yet another record breaker.

Connected: Aetna bringing CVS-centric prepare to new marketplaces with eye on even more enlargement

With this and the staggering size of the complete healthcare field in mind, CVS’ $100 million fund could be found as just an additional fall in the bucket.

“CVS Wellness is a $100 billion business and investing one-tenth of 1% of their sector cap is not likely to take care of health care, but it’s a fantastic begin,” Andrew Dudum, CEO and co-founder of purchaser-experiencing telehealth model Hims & Hers, told Fierce Healthcare.

“I’m excited about any substantial player investing dollars to aid the tens of millions of persons who are encountering excruciatingly unpleasant activities, large prices and undesirable care. I do hope it moves the needle and inspires other health devices and businesses to truly begin putting the affected individual initial and building sure their demands are satisfied in all aspects of their healthcare experience,” he mentioned.

Linked: Electronic health’s prime 10 money raisers in 2021—so far

CVS Health’s press into wellness technologies financial commitment bears some resemblance to Optum Ventures. UnitedHealth Group’s wellness companies small business initially launched its digital health expense fund on the back of $250 million in 2017. It is now developed to $600 million underneath its administration, in accordance to the fund’s internet site, and also names Unite Us amid its 36 portfolio organizations.

About a calendar year later on, Cigna kicked off a $250 million fund with analytics, electronic wellness and care supply in its crosshairs. Cigna Ventures these days lists MDLive, Ginger, Omada and AristaMD between its investments.

Other modern fund launches in just the electronic well being sphere involve Transformation Money Partners’ second, $500 million fund for industrial-stage digital wellness organizations, as effectively as a connected diabetic issues undertaking funds fund launched by Dexcom in the course of its to start with quarter earnings phone calls.