Vim raises $60 million led by U.S. health giants Walgreens and Anthem

Healthtech startup Vim, which provides an online healthcare service in the U.S., has announced the completion of a $60 million series B funding round. The company raised $24 million in the first part of the round in 2019 and has now completed it more than a year and a half later. The round was led by Walgreens, the second-largest pharmacy store chain in the U.S., health insurance giant Anthem, and Optum Ventures, with participation from Great Point Ventures, Sequoia Capital, Frist Cressey Ventures, and Premera Blue Cross.

Vim was founded in 2015 by CEO Oron Afek and CTO Asaf David and its headquarters are located in Tel Aviv. The company employs 100 people, 70 of them in Israel. Vim has raised a total of $72 million to date.

Vim develops an online service that helps patients and healthcare providers find, schedule, and receive care from doctors and specialists. The healthcare system in the U.S. is the most expensive in the world, and Americans spend more money on healthcare annually than the entire GDP of the world's fourth-largest economy Germany, many times as a result of random or problematic pricing. By matching up patients with doctors who fit their specific needs Vim is able to save healthcare providers money. Health plans, patients, and medical providers of every size––from independent practitioners to integrated delivery systems––use Vim software to connect data and care across the health system.

"Unlike in Israel, the U.S. health system is built in a way that there is a separation between the insurance companies on the one hand and the health service providers on the other hand. In addition, the data isn't shared in an effective manner between these organizations, with each party in the equation having conflicting interests, thus it is money and not the quality of service which motivates the system," explained Afek. "All of this has made the U.S. health system the most expensive among all OECD countries. Our platform has already been adopted by major U.S. insurance companies and this latest round will help us to continue and penetrate into the American market and realize our vision of improving communication between its different parts and supporting the change in the payment model for health services."

"We believe data connected in clinical workflows is essential to drive real-time decision support at the point of care, and Vim’s approach allows us to deepen our integration capabilities across the clinical ecosystem,” said Jared Josleyn, VP of Innovation, Walgreens Boots Alliance. “Supporting Vim’s work to connect health plan payers to providers is a valuable opportunity and we’re looking forward to seeing their technology continue to move health care forward.”