Insurtech company Bright Health raises $500M

This funding comes less than a year after it raised $635M, giving it a total of $1.5 billion

It's been a busy past year or so for tech-centered healthcare insurance company Bright Health: the company raised $635 million last December, then it expanded to California with the acquisition of Medicare insurance plan Brand New Day. Not to mention the company promoted President G. Mike Mikan to be its new CEO.

The company isn't slowing down, either: it announced on Tuesday that it raised another $500 million in Series E funding, bringing its total raised to over $1.5 billion.

The new funding came from funds and accounts advised by Tiger Global Management, T. Rowe Price Associates and Blackstone, with follow-on investments from existing investors including NEA, Bessemer Venture Partners and Greenspring Associates.

Founded in 2015, Bright Health offers "Care Partner Health Plans," which can include individual, family and Medicare Advantage plans.

The company says its plans are more affordable, and give patients a better experience, due to its business model of only working exclusively with one health system per market, thereby driving customers to those systems that are already providing better care at a lower cost. By only working with one health system per market, Bright Health can also drive a greater amount of market share to that one system, rather than having patients go a variety of health systems within that geography.

Bright Health now has over 30 Care Partners, including AdventHealth, Arizona Care Network, Baptist Memorial Health Care, Brookwood Baptist Health, Carondelet Health Network, Centura Health, HCA Healthcare, INTEGRIS, Mercy Health, Mount Sinai, Novant Health, Southeastern Health Partners, Tenet, TriStar Health, and the University of Tennessee Medical Center, through which is provides health benefits coverage to over 200,000 members. It also delivers virtual and direct clinical care services to over 120,000 patients.

The company, which currently operates in 43 markets and 13 states across the U.S. and sees more than $1.2 billion in annual net revenue, says it plans to use its new funding to accelerate its growth and diversification of the business and geographies in which it currently operates.

"At Bright Health we are leveraging our person-centric, intelligent technology platform to build a diversified and digitally integrated health care company," Mikan said in a statement.

"By aligning with our Care Partners, we have created a more personalized, affordable and convenient end-to-end health care experience for consumers. This funding allows us to continue to scale our transformative model and fulfill our purpose of lowering health care costs while improving outcomes, experience and access."

(Image source: brighthealthplan.com)