What You Should Know:
– Lark Health, a healthcare technology company aimed at delivering infinitely scalable, virtual chronic and preventative healthcare through conversational AI announced it has raised $100M in Series D funding led by Deerfield Management Company. The funding round also includes crossover fund PFM Health Sciences, as well as returning investors Franklin Templeton, King River Capital, Castlepeak, IPD, Olive Tree Capital, and Marvell Technology cofounder Weili Dai.
– Through its innovative use of conversational AI and data, Lark is able to scale personalized care at a significantly lower cost than other chronic conditions management services, which rely entirely on telephonic or in-person resources for coaching interaction. Lark is a covered benefit for over 30 million lives, and has raised a total of $185 million in equity and debt funding to date.
– Lark plans to use the funds to expand virtual care integrations with more payers, and further invest in research and development to continue advancing innovative data science and conversational AI.
Recent Traction/Milestones
The funding comes during a year of momentum for Lark Health. The company has recently added five members to its leadership team and published a study in Frontiers of Digital Health examining the engagement of adults 65 years and older with a digital health platform. This progress builds on the company’s announcement late last year of an expanded relationship with Anthem-affiliated health plans to power digital coaching through the health plans’ mobile app and to become the Preferred Provider for its Diabetes Prevention Program.
To date, Lark has provided nearly 2 million people with unlimited, 24/7 personalized care delivered through an easy-to-use, text message-like interface that integrates remote patient monitoring tools and is built on a cognitive behavioral therapy framework. Lark’s platform seamlessly integrates with health plans’ and employers’ existing healthcare infrastructure to help them scale their chronic disease prevention and management programs, boost engagement, and improve health outcomes. Lark currently works with many of the largest health plans and across four programs: Prevention, Diabetes Prevention, Diabetes Care, and Hypertension Care. Lark’s Diabetes Prevention Program, which is the fastest growing and lowest cost DPP, has received the highest level of clinical recognition—Full Recognition—from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
“Since the beginning of the pandemic, there is more demand for virtual care than ever before, leaving health plans and providers with an urgent need to deliver seamless virtual care experiences. This funding is an incredible validation of Lark’s approach of leveraging conversational AI and data science to help payers transform how they deliver care digitally, whether they need to quickly stand up a virtual primary care experience or close care gaps for people living with chronic conditions,” said Julia Hu, co-founder and CEO of Lark.
