Accolade has raised another big investment round to fuel growth of its healthcare technology platform.
The company, headquartered in Seattle and Philadelphia, today announced a $50 million round led by existing investors Andreessen Horowitz, Carrick Capital Partners, Madrona Venture Group, and McKesson Ventures. New investors Cross Creek Advisors and Madera Technology Partners also participated. This follows a $70 million Series E round in 2016; total funding is now north of $200 million.
Founded in 2007, Accolade is used by more than 1.1 million U.S. employees and their families. Employers use the company’s technology to help their workers navigate healthcare options. Customers include Comcast, Lowe’s, Allegiant, AmeriGas, Temple University Health System, and others.
Accolade CEO Raj Singh, who previously co-founded travel expense software giant Concur and joined the company in 2016, said employers want to control rising healthcare costs and improve the experience for their employees.
“Having tried a myriad of different answers, employers are finally acknowledging that they have to make a more proactive choice in terms of what they are doing with healthcare,” Singh told GeekWire. “That involves evaluating their entire healthcare supply chain and taking it apart. In many respects, that is the work we do for them.”
Accolade uses a combination of personal health data, machine learning, artificial intelligence, mobile apps, analytics, and human concierge “Health Assistants” to help provide users with personalized healthcare recommendations. It charges employers on a per-employee subscription fee. The company is not yet profitable.
Accolade and its investors see big opportunity. Singh said U.S. employers represent 170 million people as it relates to paying for healthcare. He noted that “for every employer we serve, we drive down their cost of healthcare.”
“The idea of a personal relationship coupled with technology and an open platform that can tie all the rest of your benefits programs together — none of that has existed in the past,” Singh explained. “One-tenth of this service has been delivered in the past by insurance carriers. What Accolade has done is rethought the entire process and created a brand new category.”
Singh said the recent joint healthcare company announced by Amazon, JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Berkshire Hathaway in January is validation for Accolade and its mission. He noted that healthcare in the U.S. is going through a “significant transformation.”
“We view the joint venture, and other initiatives like this that will spring up from other companies, as not only complementary to what we do but as significant opportunities for partnership and complementary activity,” Singh said.
Singh said Accolade will consider an IPO in the future.
Accolade employs 800 people, including 120 in Seattle, where it opened an office in 2016. The company expects to add another few hundred employees this year.
Singh came to Accolade with Concur co-founder Mike Hilton, who is Accolade’s chief product officer. Concur sold to SAP for $8.3 billion in 2014.
