What You Should Know:
– Elevate, a Denver, CO-based next-generation consumer-directed benefits platform, today announced that it has raised $12 million in Series A funding, co-led by Greycroft and Norwest Venture Partners, with participation from existing investors Bowery Capital. The fresh round of capital coincides with Elevate’s formal public launch after a year in stealth mode, as it looks to reimagine how employers and employees access, manage and experience consumer-directed benefits. The round brings Elevate’s total raise to $15 million.
– Elevate makes life easier for employers and employees by bringing innovation, simplicity and security to consumer-directed benefits. With Elevate, employees can easily view, plan and manage their pre-tax benefits from a single intuitive dashboard, whether on the web or mobile. All benefits can be accessed and delivered through one contactless card. Claims are processed instantly and reimbursement takes place within minutes.
Why do tax-advantaged healthcare benefits matter?
Half of Americans enrolled in high-deductible healthcare plans and 21% of working-age Americans underinsured, tax-advantaged benefits programs also help offset rising healthcare costs shouldered by employers and employees.
Why do tax-advantaged healthcare benefits need to be modernized?
Americans spend $5,000 a year on out-of-pocket healthcare costs. Tax-advantaged benefit accounts like HSAs and FSAs were designed to help employees manage these costs. However, the 100M of American workers signed up for tax-advantaged benefits are still logging into antiquated web portals from 1995, scanning and faxing receipts, calling into customer service and juggling multiple spending cards.
How is Elevate modernizing the industry?
Elevate is co-founded by former ConnectYourCare founder Brian Strom and former Businessolver executive Brian Cosgray. At launch, former Wageworks COO Scott Rose has joined Elevate as Chief Operating Officer and former BenefitExpress CGO Melanie Hallenbeck has joined Elevate as Chief Growth Officer. With Elevate, employees can easily view, plan and manage their pre-tax benefits from a single intuitive dashboard, whether on the web or mobile. All benefits can be accessed and delivered through one contactless card. Claims are processed instantly and reimbursement takes place within minutes.
For employers, Elevate offers a fully customizable plan builder, based on configurable attributes, a standard template for common plans like HSA, FSA, PSA, HRA, and commuter, and configurable at the sub-plan level for companies with multiple divisions and plans. Elevate is available today as a fully branded offering for large employers, and a white-labeled platform for third-party administrators (TPAs), professional employment organizations (PEOs) and other tech-forward partners selling into small and medium-sized businesses. Additionally, Elevate is rolling out to 900 customers by Q1 2022 and is taking on market leader Health Equity.
“If one third of American employees use one or more employer-sponsored consumer directed benefits, imagine what utilization would look like if we modernized the experience for both employees and employers,” said Brian Cosgray, co-founder and CEO, Elevate. “We’ve spent the last year building to this vision of modernization, and we look forward to empowering employers and employees with the consumer directed benefits experience they deserve.”
