American Well closes $194m funding round

  • June 2, 2020
  • Steve Rogerson

Massachusetts-based telehealth company American Well (Amwell) has closed its series C financing round, adding $194m in funding.

The company says it will use significant parts of the funds to expand its investment in technology and services that make it easy, convenient and effective for doctors and patients to connect securely at scale. Amwell will continue to ensure that clinical encounters remain integrated in existing workflows and enveloped with healthcare-appropriate clinical and administrative information, management and reporting.

As Covid-19 swept across the USA, Amwell has seen a significant expansion in usage of its core platform. With fewer regulatory restrictions as well as enhanced reimbursement from Medicare and Commercial insurance, Amwell has seen growth in on-demand visits for Covid-19 symptoms and/or risk assessments, as well as for referrals as needed to hospital or testing facilities.

It has also seen significantly higher scheduled visit volume, as providers seek to treat patients, especially the elderly or those with underlying health conditions, for prescription renewals, specialty visits and regular primary care check-ins during state-issued stay-at-home orders.

As a result of these developments, Amwell has recently facilitated as many as 45,000 telehealth visits per day across its platform. Relatedly, the number of active providers, clinicians who have completed at least one visit in the past year, has risen significantly.

“The past two months have accelerated telehealth by more than two years,” said Ido Schoenberg, CEO of Amwell. “We intend to build upon this momentum to transform healthcare with digital care delivery. Our strategic investors are providers, insurers, consumer gateways and healthcare innovators. Each of these partners play a key role in creating a more interconnected digital healthcare ecosystem, where our mission is to deliver greater access to more affordable, high quality care.”

Many early investors and partners participated in this round, including Allianz X and Takeda.

“Being an investor and partner to Amwell since early 2018, Allianz is excited to see the company emerge as a digital healthcare leader in the USA,” said Nazim Cetin, CEO of Allianz X. “As one of the leading insurance and financial services leaders in the world, we look forward to deepening our collaboration and bringing innovative solutions to a global audience.”

Karl Hick, chief digital officer at Takeda, added: “Takeda is investing in digital transformation across our business and building key technology partnerships. Patient journeys will be transformed through new settings of care as we emerge from Covid-19. Amwell has developed a highly scalable and agile technology platform that we believe can directly improve patient access and outcomes.”

Amwell powers telehealth for more than 240 health systems comprised of 2000 hospitals and 55 health plan partners with over 36,000 employers, reaching over 150 million lives.