Vim raises $24 million to match patients with top health care providers

San Francisco, California- and Tel Aviv-based Vim, a startup developing a platform for health plan-provider collaboration, today announced that it’s raised $24 million in series B funding co-led by Optum Ventures and Premera, with participation from Great Point Ventures and Sequoia Capital. The fresh capital follows a $10.6 million venture series in September 2016 (a year after the company’s founding), and it brings Vim’s total raised to $37 million.

Cofounder and CEO Oron Afek said the fresh funds will fuel Vim’s expansion across new U.S. markets and accelerate its product development and hiring efforts.

“Vim’s platform helps remove the complexity of navigating the health care system and uniquely positions us to align stakeholders,” wrote Afek, who cofounded Vim in 2015 with Asaf David and Yael Peled. “It’s more important than ever that we use technology to help patients access high-quality care and reward care providers for delivering value. We’ve already proven we can drive a meaningful impact in Washington, Alaska, Florida and Texas, and we’re excited to leverage our recent investment to reach more patients and care providers.”

Vim’s solution curates top providers and pairs patients with those providers, leveraging a combination of online booking and referral coordination. On the provider side, it algorithmically analyzes referral patterns to bring to light trends without disrupting workflows, ultimately toward the goal of guiding patients to value-based health solutions in virtual networks.

For the uninitiated, value-based health care is a delivery model in which providers, including hospitals and physicians, are paid based on health outcomes. That’s as opposed to fee-for-service or capitated approaches, in which providers are paid based on the amount of health care services they deliver.

Vim says it has access to 10,000,000 patient profiles and 150,000 providers through major U.S.-based health plan partners. In the next 12 months, it loftily intends to “meaningfully reduce” the $1 trillion of excess cost in health care in the U.S. by targeting inconsistencies in treatment.

It’s an admirable mission, and very likely a profitable one. According to a report published by the Health Care Payment Learning and Action Network, a part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, the percentage of health care payments tied to value-based care reached 34% in 2017, up 23% from 2015.

“Vim is poised to dramatically change how payers and providers operate in a value-based world,” wrote Sequoia partner Shmil Levy. “The team is creative and dead set on changing health care.”

Optum Ventures fund adviser Jon Bunker added, “Vim’s unique ability to help patients find, schedule and receive the highest-quality care while promoting health plan and care provider collaboration will lead to better care outcomes for patients.”