GuideWell and Highmark Ventures led a $35 million funding round for kidney population health management company Healthmap Solutions.
The investment from Florida Blue parent company GuideWell and Highmark's investment arm into the Tampa, Fla.-based kidney care company highlights the recent interest from payers and providers in the healthcare needs of 40 million people living with kidney disease in the U.S., according to a May 2 press release.
The scale of the issue has only been accelerated by the federal Cures Act and the "Advancing American Kidney Health Initiative" executive order from President Donald Trump.
Healthmap was selected for investment after GuideWell and Highmark conducted a review of the kidney management market.
Previous investors Windrose, DCHP, Shulman Ventures and management also participated in the latest funding round.
Healthmap will use the funding to fuel additional growth. The company had 60 employees in the summer of 2020 and plans to have over 500 by the end of 2022. By then, Healthmap will have more than 150,000 members under contract across commercial, Medicare and Medicaid lines.
"This partnership draws on natural synergies between Highmark and Healthmap, as we are both committed to revolutionizing healthcare delivery in the U.S.," Highmark CFO Saurabh Tripathi said. "Our goal is to improve kidney care and reduce costs with new approaches to care. We are excited to work with Healthmap's proprietary artificial intelligence to build individualized care plans at scale and partner with our network providers to enable them to be more effective and efficient in caring for these complex patients."
Florida Blue Medicare President Kathy Feeny said, "Healthmap's unique approach to kidney disease management engages with earlier stage kidney disease members and proactively partners with our provider network, helping us to make a measurable difference for our kidney disease members."