Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMBs) have been struggling to provide health insurance to their employees for decades.
Startup Sana, which wants to make health insurance plan offerings more accessible to these companies, has raised $ 60 million in a Series B funding round.
Trust Ventures and Gigafund have jointly led the round, bringing the total amount of Austin, Texas-based startups to $ 107 million since their inception in 2017. Existing backers include American Family Ventures, mark vc, Breyer Capital, JAM Fund and Liquid 2. The company didn’t disclose its rating, saying it had “about doubled” since the $ 20 million extension of Series A last October.
Simply put, Sana’s mission is to provide SMB with “better and more affordable” health insurance. It claims to save companies up to 20% compared to current health insurance.
“Our plan covers everything a legacy health insurer does, including free visits to next-generation virtual care services in primary care, mental health, pediatrics and obstetrics,” co-founder. Will Young, also CEO, said.
Sana We offer plans in eight states, including Arizona, Oklahoma, Texas, Illinois, Ohio, and Kentucky. It has recently expanded to Virginia and Indiana, but will partially use the new capital to move to new states within the next few months.
According to Young, its customers are not only small businesses that already offer health insurance plans, but also those that previously couldn’t afford to provide medical care to their employees. He estimates that 35-40% of new customers are such companies.
Most customers receive a 0% increase update, which is rare in the industry and has a low out-of-pocket cost, Young says.
Sana has health insurance for about 20,000 people today, and he said the number of customers has tripled over the past year. These include, among others, Bishop Cider, Ben Hogan Golf and Brew Bikes.
“We haven’t made a profit yet, but we plan to get there with this round of funding,” Young told TechCrunch.
The company’s model is unique in his view due to its vertically integrated approach. We make money by charging for various services related to selling, underwriting and managing health insurance. We also make money from insurance risk.
In January, Sana opened the first physical primary care health center called SanaMD for Austin members. According to Young, the center’s concierge care is free for members on most plans.
In particular, Trust Ventures and Gigafund have invested in Sana since the company’s seed round in 2019. The latter leads four separate rounds of investment in the company because “the team continues to impress with its incredible vision and execution.” In a written statement, Gigafund’s managing partner, Stephen Oskoui.
SalenturiThe strength of Sana, the founder and general partner of Trust Ventures, is its ability to provide access to “a vast network of providers” and “state-of-the-art digital health and wellness technologies, all over Legacy.” It is also offered to small businesses at low cost. Health insurance. “
In addition to expanding into new markets, Sana plans to use the new capital to hire in business, member advocacy, sales and marketing teams. According to Young, we also plan to open more primary care health centers in additional locations.
Currently, RemoteFirst Sana has 170 employees, up from 80 at the beginning of 2021.
The insurtech sector has recently had ups and downs. Listed companies in this area are still struggling while other start-ups have been dismissed and others have raised new capital with a unicorn valuation.
