Laguna Health, a so-called contextual care management platform built with artificial intelligence, has announced the initial close of a $15 million Series A round co-led by California’s SemperVirens and New York-based HC9 Ventures. So far, the New York- and Tel Aviv-based company has raised $21.6 million in its quest to ease patients on self-care at home.
“We are thrilled to partner with SemperVirens and HC9 Ventures to further the growth of Laguna Health. Their leadership, experience and relationships will help drive accelerated employer and health plan adoption – giving Laguna the potential to make a difference in millions of members’ lives,” said Laguna Health co-founder and CEO Yoni Shtein, a former Microsoft engineer and investment manager.
Shtein and his former Microsoft colleague Yael Adam co-founded Laguna after profound personal experiences with post-hospitalization challenges. Shtein lost a loved one, while Adam, who has also worked at Amazon, faced challenges following multiple surgeries for sports injuries.
Laguna says at least two-thirds of 35 million Americans hospitalized annually require home self-care. But medical authorities don’t have a platform to assess specific requirements of each patient, creating numerous challenges in a home environment. For example, a patient on insulin would be hard pressed to meet daily medical goals if their arthritic fingers came in the way of administering injections. Consequently, “care transitions” are woefully underserved, and further hobbled by chronic staffing shortages and overwhelming caseloads.
Using AI, Laguna has built a “contextual care model” that integrates medical care plans with social, emotional and cultural factors to help care managers better manage ongoing care. Its natural language processing model would consider, for example, various required digital and human interventions for a woman with family and career obligations, the company said. Laguna claims 50% cost savings and 10-fold productivity gains for care managers.
“Driving both impact and scale is usually a painful tradeoff for health plans, post-acute providers and home health providers,” said Richard Lungen, general partner at HC9 Ventures. “Laguna has proven that AI powered contextual care is both effective and scalable, positioning it as the next-generation care management platform of choice for employers, health plans and integrated delivery networks.”
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HC9 Ventures
New York-based HC9 Ventures was started by Jon Gordon, who previously was an executive at New York-Presbyterian Hospital’s NYP Ventures, and Charlie Falcone, CEO of Verisys Corp.
It launched last November, raising $83 million from investors. It has made four portfolio investments. Besides Laguna Health, its other investments are XP Health, Psych Hub and Forge Health.
SemperVirens
San Mateo, Calif.-based SemperVirens, founded by former Sequoia Consulting Group executive Robby Peters, has made 38 portfolio investments so far. Its recent investments include Gable, ianacare, Midi Health, Hone, Mosey, Fountain and Finch.
