Cricket Health, a tech-enabled provider of integrated kidney care, today announced it has raised $24 million in Series A funding led by Oak HC/FT. Other participants in the round include additional new investors include Cigna Corporation, LifeForce Capital, iSeed Ventures, Joe Montana’s Liquid 2 Ventures, Rock Health co-founder Halle Tecco, and Virta Health co-founder Sami Inkinen. Returning investors include First Round Capital, Box Group, Nexus Ventures, Seven Peaks Ventures, Aberdare Management, and LinkedIn CEO Jeff Weiner.
The company plans to use the latest round of funding to help Cricket Health expand its tech-enabled programs and its clinical footprint, including the ongoing development of care management for ESRD patients to delay the need for dialysis and the creation of new home dialysis and in-center programs.
Founded in 2015 by former LinkedIn executive Arvind Rajan and former General Partner at Aberdare Venture Vince Kim, Cricket Health is a specialty care provider of integrated nephrology and dialysis care for people with chronic kidney disease (CKD) and end-stage renal disease (ESRD). Cricket Health works with risk-bearing payers and health systems to identify high-risk patients well before kidney failure and focuses on preserving kidney function as long as possible. Cricket Health’s treatment plan prioritizes slowing the progression of kidney failure, keeping patients out of the hospital, ensuring prepared transitions, and supporting patients on any ESRD treatment path. This is done by combining in one provider: a nephrology practice that provides remote, in-person, and at-home care; a multidisciplinary care team to coordinate care and manage outcomes; state-of-the-art technology to provide patient education and 24-7 peer and clinical support; and dialysis care either at home or in redesigned centers that put patient empowerment first.
“Kidney care in our country is broken: patients too often end up on very costly, life-altering, in-center dialysis because upside-down incentives put them there,” said Cricket Health CEO Arvind Rajan. “Our mission at Cricket is to reduce the burden of kidney disease and put patients back in control of their lives with the care that is cost-effective, keeps them healthy, and gives them hope for the future. This funding will help us provide better care to millions of Americans facing kidney disease.”
