Ro, a New York-based Patient-driven Telehealth Startup Raises $200M in Series C Funding.
The round was led by investor General Catalyst, along with participation from other existing investors Torch, FirstMark Capital, Initialized Capital, SignalFire, TQ Ventures, 3L and BoxGroup, and The Chernin Group. With the completion of this round in Series C funding, Ro has successfully raised a total of $376M since its founding in 2017 and is now reportedly valued at $1.5B.
Offering Digital Health Solutions
Ro provides patients access to doctors through telehealth, allowing patients to hear results within 24 hours. The HealthTech venture also offers Ro Pharmacy, which prepares, packs, and ships prescriptions directly to members within two days for a cost of $5 a month per drug.
Roman was the startup’s first product, a digital health clinic for men offering coverage surrounding sexual health, hair loss, skin treatments, as well as heart health, stress relief, bone health, prostate health and testosterone support. Since then, Ro has expanded to two more offerings, Rory and Zero. Rory is dedicated to women’s health, offering coverage for skin, sexual health, daily health, menopause and more. Zero offers a treatment plan for smoking cessation. These solutions aim to improve accessibility and convenience through telehealth while ensuring personalised and quality care with confidentiality and transparency.
Between all three clinics, the startup treats close to 20 conditions, including sexual health, allergies, weight loss, and dermatology, and it has facilitated over five million digital healthcare visits.
Future Plans For Ro
With the new funding, Ro is expanding its horizon into virtual urgent care visits, in-home testing, and caring for patients with chronic conditions through remote-patient monitoring solutions. It also plans to double its engineering team by hiring 70 engineers in the upcoming six months.
Since the start of the COVID pandemic, Ro has been seeing double to triple digital percentage growth in patients seeking virtual treatment for conditions such as dermatology, allergies, sleep and smoke cessation.
“Telehealth went from primarily offering convenience and affordability to offering convenience, affordability, and safety as people seek remote/at-home care. Now, as more patients and providers have used telehealth, we’re seeing the benefits extend beyond triage and that telehealth can serve as a complement to in-person care. Telehealth makes it easier to connect with patients on the phone, or by video or text, enabling more personal, frequent interactions and more continuous care,” said Zachariah Reitano, Co-Founder and CEO of Ro.
The doubling of its engineering team will help to build the HealthTech startup’s technology to offer remote patient monitoring solutions with integrated devices. Ro also plans to integrate additional healthcare providers, such as nutritionists, therapists, social workers and others to expand educational resources on Ro’s Health Guide to provide comprehensive and holistic care regardless of the patients’ needs.
This is reflective in what Reitano sees as a paradigm shift of interests in telehealth where HealthTech and digital care is moving to the point of entry for many patients.
“Even if they might have confidence that in-person care might be right for them, they might start it online,” he said. “I think you’ll see this digital-first mentality.”
Ro has taken strides to build out its “digital front door.” The company partnered with another HealthTech startup, Ribbon Health, to build a directory to help patients who need in-person care to find a nearby provider.
“All of this is bringing more of our vision of being a patient’s first call into reality,” Reitano said. “The biggest thing for us will be to expand the breadth and depth of services we offer for patients.”
About Ro
Ro is a patient-driven telehealth company that puts you in control of your health. We’re patients, just like you, building technology to make healthcare accessible, affordable, and maybe even enjoyable. Today, we enable you to connect with a doctor and get treatment when and where you need it. Tomorrow, we aspire to be your first call to all your healthcare needs, Ro offers Roman for men’s health, Rory for women’s health, and Zero for fighting smoking cessation, as well as Ro Pharmacy, an online Pharmacy.
