Telemedicine company Amwell raises $194 million

Peter Antall, Amwell's Chief Medical Officer, will be speaking at our Future of Virtual Care salon

It seems like you can't go a single day now without a telehealth company raising funding, both big and small. The incredible increase in the number people using phone and video platforms for their health visits has led to a huge amount of funding being pumped into this space: there was nearly $800 million invested in just the first quarter of the year alone, up 258 percent year-to-year. And that was before all the shelter in place orders went into effect around the country. 

Now, one of the largest telehealth companies has announced a big new funding round that will help solidify its position in the space: on Tuesday, Amwell revealed that it raised $194 million in Series C funding across two tranches. The funding came from what it describes as "many early investors and strategic partners," including Allianz X and Takeda.

(Editor's note: Peter Antall, MD, Chief Medical Officer at Amwell, will be joining Vator, HP and UCSF Health Hub at our upcoming Future of Virtual Care salon. Get tickets here!)

Founded in 2006, Amwell provides a platform that supports telehealth during urgent, acute and post-acute care needs. It also supports chronic care management and healthy living.

The company currently reaches 150 million individuals through over 55 health plan partners, including 33 Blue Plans and UnitedHealthcare. It has over 240 health system partners, including Cleveland Clinic, Commonspirit Health and Northwell, which represent over 2,000 hospitals. Amwell also has 36,000 employers on its platform. 

The reason for raising this funding, the company revealed, is due to the increase in demand thanks to COVID.

While the company didn't provide any specific numbers, it did say that, in the just the last two months, it has seen its on-demand visits for COVID-19 symptoms and/or risk assessments grow, as had its referrals as needed to hospital or testing facilities. In addition, the company has also seen higher scheduled visit volume as well, which includes prescription renewals, specialty visits, and regular primary care check-ins. As such, the number of clinicians who have completed at least one visit in the past year has also gone up.

Amwell is now seeing as many as 45,000 telehealth visits per day across the its platform.  

"The past two months have accelerated telehealth by more than two years," Ido Schoenberg, CEO of Amwell, said in statement.

"We intend to build upon this momentum to transform healthcare with digital care delivery. Our strategic investors are providers, insurers, consumer gateways and healthcare innovators. Each of these partners play a key role in creating a more interconnected digital healthcare ecosystem, where our mission is to deliver greater access to more affordable, high quality care."

Amwell says it will use the funds, in part, to invest in its technology and services, while also making sure that clinical encounters remain fully integrated in existing workflows.

VatorNews reached out to Amwell for additional information on the new funding and the increases it has seen thanks to COVID, but the company was not commenting at this time 

(Image source: amwell.com/)