Tendo Systems raises $50M to connect patients, clinicians, and caregivers

The company was founded less than a year ago but is already valued at $550 million

For all the money and resources we throw at healthcare, and it is quite a lot of money, as well as all of the advancements that are being made in the last few years, it doesn't seem to be working very well for most people: Americans are less satisfied with their health system than numerous other countries around the world.

That's why siblings Dan and Jen Goldsmith, former senior executives at Veeva Systems and Instructure, founded Tendo Systems, a healthcare software company aiming to foster digital engagement between patients, clinicians, and caregivers. 

"We’ve spent the last year listening to patients, caregivers, clinicians and administrators. We’ve heard hundreds of stories in healthcare. And, while each story is personal and unique, so many stories share a common thread of anxiety, frustration, and uncertainty. If health and well-being are so important in our lives, why is healthcare so hard to use?" Dan Goldsmith, the company's CEO, said to me.

Tendo was started, he explained, "to transform healthcare through software."

"As consumers, we’ve become accustomed to accessing services, products, and media at the touch of a screen: connected, coordinated, and available. These realities exist just about everywhere today, except in healthcare. We believe we can build a healthier, more connected world where seeking, delivering, and managing care is frictionless."

On Wednesday, Tendo announced a $50 million funding Series B round led by existing investor Lux Capital, with participation from Series A lead investor General Catalyst. The company will use the new funding to grow out its team and to make additional investments in product development and business development. 

With this latest round, Tendo has now raised $69 million in total, and is valued at $550 million, despite the fact that it was founded less than a year ago and has not yet released its initial product, which is slated for the first half of 2022.

When the product is released, Tendo's software will help healthcare providers deliver better healthcare experiences, better clinical outcomes, and greater efficiency. The company partners with health systems, allowing it to understand and address specific healthcare needs, and to create deeper alignment across healthcare systems.

So far, the company has signed two foundational customers, including Jefferson Health, with three more to be selected, many of whom were part of a 50-person listening tour that the siblings did in 2020.

As the company is still so early in its journey, it hasn't yet been able to calculate any ROI, Jen Goldsmith, Tendo's president, told me; she would say, though, that she and Dan "believe in building models that promote transparent collaboration between people and organizations."

"Similar to what we’ve done previously at Veeva Systems in life sciences, and Instructure in education, we’re building a cloud-native platform that’s open, scalable, and configurable, so ROI will be easy to measure." 

Healthcare has changed a lot in just the last year thanks to COVID, which pushed digital and virtual healthcare along much faster than they otherwise would have been. That shift towards more personalized, value-based care that’s focused on wellness and ongoing engagement, is the trend that Tendo is capitalizing on.

"Our vision is to bring together the disparate landscape for a seamless experience for both patients and clinicians. Healthcare consumers, meaning the patients, are demanding more user friendly experiences, similar to those they are used to in other areas in their life. You can make a dinner reservation on your phone in a few clicks, why should booking a healthcare appointment be any different?" Jen Goldsmith said.

"We see the potential for every patient, clinician, and caregiver to reinvent their story. Change takes time, but we believe software and collaboration can help us all build a healthier, more connected world where seeking, delivering, and managing care is frictionless."

(Correction: this article incorrectly named Dan and Jen Goldsmith as founders of at Veeva Systems and Instructure)