Firefly Health CEO Fay Rotenberg and executive chairman Jonathan Bush outlined how the Series B funding round will support the company's forward-looking goals.
Firefly Health, the virtual-first primary care, behavioral health, and specialty care service headquartered in Watertown, Massachusetts, recently announced that it had closed a $40 million Series B funding round.
The financing effort was led by Andreessen Horowitz, a Silicon Valley-based venture capital firm, and will result in the addition of partner Julie Yoo to Firefly Health's board of directors.
Firefly Health stated in a press release that the additional funding will assist in ongoing expansion plans; the company currently operates in four states in the northeast. Additionally, the company intends to launch a health plan, Firefly Plan, later this year.
Late last week, Firefly Health CEO Fay Rotenberg and executive chairman Jonathan Bush spoke with HealthLeaders to outline how the Series B funding round will support the company's forward-looking goals.
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Rotenberg said that the primary purpose of the additional $40 million will be to roll out the comprehensive benefits plan built around the company's virtual-first offerings.
Bush added that Firefly Health is participating in a technological disruption of the healthcare market that he said should have occurred "years ago."
"With all of these telemedicine companies, maybe Teladoc [Health] was the iPod and now we're getting into more powerful computing on the edge," Bush said. "We can do more of our healthcare delivery without having to go to the more expensive [location] called a hospital."
He also said that an obstacle to widespread change in healthcare has been issues with the demand curve, noting that a single lower-priced component won't disrupt the industry compared to a slate of comprehensive health offerings for a consumer or business.
"With a balance sheet like this, Firefly [Health] can now go to employers and say, 'Hey, not only is it better and higher-quality care, but you will pay less every month if you buy it,'" Bush said. "That was not something [Firefly] could do until they had the resources to fund the delivery of a whole healthcare benefit as opposed to just a point-solution in behavioral health and primary care."
Related: Firefly Health CTO on the Rise of Virtual-First Healthcare
Rotenberg noted that employers are "hungry" to address rising premiums, which is a pain point that she said Firefly can alleviate with lower costs of care and higher quality of service.
"It's also an easier conversation for us to have than when we were only offering virtual primary, behavioral health, and specialty care," Rotenberg said. "These are of course the benefits, but I think it's easier for employers to understand what's been blocked in than it was beforehand."
Looking at the future of telemedicine, Rotenberg said that care delivery must move beyond virtual urgent care and complement those services with physical care options as well.
She added that the "first wave" of telehealth has centered around the convenience factor for patients but predicts that the next phase will focus on delivering high-quality care while driving value.
Jack O'Brien is the Content Team Lead and Finance Editor at HealthLeaders, an HCPro brand.
Photo credit: Photo courtesy of Firefly Health