New Funds Will Accelerate Growth of Existing Business with Payors and Fuel New Product Lines
SAN FRANCISCO -- Wildflower Health, maker of mobile maternity program Due Date Plus, today announced a $5 million investment in the company to facilitate its strategic expansion. New investors Easton Capital and Hatteras Venture Partners led the funding round with participation by existing investors Cambia Health Solutions and HealthTechCapital.
The financing will help Wildflower expand its offerings to include new programs that help families manage their healthcare and connect them to the healthcare system in a more efficient, smarter way. The company will continue to invest in its HIPPA-compliant platform to help payors engage with members in the mobile environment and plans to launch a Spanish version of Due Date Plus in the next few months.
"Wildflower's maternity and family health solutions enable our client brands to shine in the mobile environment, highlighting the unique services and products that they offer and helping them establish richer relationships with their members," said Leah Sparks, CEO of Wildflower Health. "This investment, along with the outstanding leadership that Easton and Hatteras bring to our family of investors, will help spur our next wave of growth."
In addition to its recent funding, Wildflower inked a strategic partnership with Everyday Health, the company that operates the popular 'What to Expect' digital franchise that reaches about 75 percent of pregnant women in the United States. The partnership will help Wildflower extend its range of services to health plans and employers, and reach pregnant women earlier with the most comprehensive content offering available on the market.
Wildflower's existing contracts with commercial and Medicaid health plans cover 2 million members through its flagship product, Due Date Plus, which tracks more than 50 pregnancy risk factors to stratify populations and refer them to appropriate medical interventions. The application maps a series of personalized milestones and notifications that guide a woman through her pregnancy. It identifies about one-third of women as having pregnancy risks and connects them at the right time to the programs and benefits available from their health plan. About 70 percent of Due Date Plus users tap into its enterprise features to help them make better healthcare decisions based on their health benefits.
With this announcement, Kresimir Letinic, MD, Ph.D., Managing Director at Easton Capital and John Crumpler, Co-founder and General Partner at Hatteras Venture Partners join the Wildflower board of directors.
"Historically, pregnancy management programs have done poorly because health plans did not have effective ways of engaging moms early in their pregnancy. Wildflower solves this problem of early engagement and risk identification, and therefore has the potential to dramatically impact health outcomes and costs," said Dr. Letinic. "To us at Easton, this impact seemed truly transformative. To our knowledge, Wildflower is the best and most unique enterprise platform addressing this need and Easton is excited to back this excellent team."
"The Wildflower team impressed us with their leadership role in healthcare's enterprise mobile space," said Mr. Crumpler. "They have established maternity as an important and addressable sector that no health plan can ignore. We look forward to joining in the accelerated growth this investment will bring." Mr. Crumpler is responsible for Hatteras' investments in healthcare-related information technology.
"Wildflower is well-positioned to bridge the consumer-to-enterprise engagement gap that many payors must resolve to effectively reach members and reduce costs to the system," said Beth Andersen, existing board member and President and CEO at LifeMap Assurance Company.
Since its founding in 2013, Wildflower Health has raised more than $6.7 million from healthcare investors.
To learn more about Wildflower, please visit: www.wildflowerhealth.com
To learn more about Easton Capital, please visit: www.eastoncapital.com
To learn more about Hatteras Venture Partners, please visit: www.hatterasvp.com
To learn more about Cambia Health Solutions, please visit: www.cambiahealth.com
To learn more about HealthTechCapital, please visit: www.healthtechcapital.com
To learn more about Lifemap Assurance Company, please visit: www.LifeMapco.com
