23.6% of all healthcare interactions were via telehealth during the first four months of the pandemic, up from just .3% for the same period in 2019. The transition to digital has largely been led by primary care access but what happens when you need to access a specialist. Summus Global is a virtual care platform focused on providing employees and their families with specialist access. The company partners with corporate health benefit providers and organizations to provide access to a network of 4000+ top-tier specialists across 48 hospitals without long-drawn-out waits. During the pandemic, Summus grew its membership base 11x.
AlleyWatch caught up with CEO and Founder Julian Flannery to learn more about increasing access to healthcare digitally during the pandemic, the company’s future plans, latest round of funding, which brings the total funding raised to $27M, and much, much more.
Who were your investors and how much did you raise?
We raised a $21M Series B round led by Sator Grove Holdings, with participation from Outsiders Fund, Savoy Capital, Teamworthy Ventures, and existing investors.
Tell us about the product or service that Summus Global offers.
Summus Global is shaping the future of virtual care as the leading virtual specialist platform. Summus combines best-in-class technology with a marketplace model for specialist expertise, empowering families to connect quickly with leading medical specialists, helping them to make more informed, higher quality decisions across all health questions. Summus provides access to a network of 4,000+ top specialists across 48 leading hospitals — within days, from anywhere in the world.
Summus’ innovative virtual specialty care model is creating a new category in corporate health benefits, straddling the navigation and second opinion categories with a physician-led model that broadens the impact on employee populations across the continuum of care. By prioritizing the virtual experience for healthcare providers, Summus has become the choice platform for the world’s leading specialists, who spend an average of 45 minutes with Summus members per consult, three times the industry average.
What inspired the start of Summus Global?
I previously served on the management team at Gerson Lehrman Group (GLG), the world’s largest membership-based platform for professional expertise. After my time at GLG, I had a conversation with a friend, who is a former surgeon, and the idea clicked. The question we posed was, “What if we could bring a similar knowledge marketplace concept to healthcare?” We looked at the challenges healthcare consumers face in healthcare – the complexity and challenge to find and access doctors and top health systems. On the other side of the market, physician burnout was exceptionally high and the ‘market’ for their experience and knowledge was hugely inefficient.
With my experience in building and running marketplaces, and my personal background coming from a family of doctors, I started Summus Global to create a new way to help patients access high-quality medical expertise from anywhere in the world. Our mission is to restore the connection between patients and the collective wisdom of the medical community. In this mission, Summus celebrates exceptional physicians and has deep respect for expertise developed from years of training and practical experience. For families, Summus transforms an existing referral system that is highly inefficient and opaque with a personalized virtual healthcare experience that shortens the time frame to access expertise across all health concerns.
How is Summus Global different?
There’s an abundance of telehealth and virtual care solutions in the market today, but Summus stands out through our focus on specialty care, the quality of doctors our platform has been able to attract, and our ability to provide fast access to leading doctors across any health question. Our model allows us to create a broad funnel inside organizations where we serve as a digital front door across all health questions. From migraines to pediatric development, fertility questions, to more complex diagnoses like cancer and ALS, Summus is able to rapidly connect families with high-quality doctors who support better decision making, and ultimately, better health outcomes.
Our model enables us to drive industry-leading utilization; 5-10x the second opinion category and generate exceptional customer feedback, where 92% of our members feel more informed and empowered after engaging with Summus.
What market does Summus Global target and how big is it?
We are going after the combined $50Bn market that encompasses the 2nd opinion and Navigator categories. Summus brings a unique virtual specialty care model that straddles both categories to help families make better, more cost-efficient medical decisions. In a recent study Summus conducted, more than half of human resources professionals said their company’s employees currently have access to a third-party virtual healthcare solution, and that number is likely to grow in the coming years.
What’s your business model?
We have brought a knowledge marketplace model to healthcare. Our platform is becoming the leading doctor’s choice for virtual specialty care, and we sell our solution to employers, large groups, and HR services platforms. Our members access our network across preventive care, wellness, ongoing and chronic, and complex and serious health concerns. We are pioneering the future of corporate health benefits, partnering with companies to create an elevated healthcare experience for employees and their families that drives better, more cost-efficient outcomes across all stages of care. We also license our platform as a SaaS solution to health systems, powering their new patient engagement initiatives in specialty care.
How has COVID-19 impacted the business?
COVID has radically accelerated adoption of virtual care for health consumers and doctors. In many ways the market has caught up to what we are doing at Summus, with the #1 priority for employers in 2021 being the addition of virtual care solutions. Importantly, 76% of consumers will use virtual care solutions post-COVID (versus 11% using pre-pandemic). For physicians, 65% have a positive view of virtual care as a tool for engaging patients. When you see that kind of forced adoption combined with a very positive view of a new way of doing things, that trend is likely to stick.
What was the funding process like?
We have always been selective in the investors we approach to partner with, and this round was no different. We have an experienced board and team and we were attracted to financial partners who saw our vision but were also great fits for our team, board, and opportunity. In particular, we were attracted to the innovative permanent capital model of Sator Grove Holdings, who led our round. Investors matter, as does the structure of their funds and incentives. With SGH, we have a partner who is very much aligned with our mission to build an enduring company.
What are the biggest challenges that you faced while raising capital?
Finding the balance between focusing on the unique opportunity we had in the market given COVID and the intense process of fundraising was a bit of a challenge. The good news is we managed to achieve material growth (growing our membership over 1000% LTM) and find incredible partners to complement our existing investor base.
Finding the balance between focusing on the unique opportunity we had in the market given COVID and the intense process of fundraising was a bit of a challenge. The good news is we managed to achieve material growth (growing our membership over 1000% LTM) and find incredible partners to complement our existing investor base.
What factors about your business led your investors to write the check?
Ultimately, it’s a combination of trust in our team and the opportunity in the market. We have a unique team with deep experience in growing marketplaces focused on knowledge. Our investors saw an opportunity to aggressively pursue a next-generation solution in virtual care with a high-integrity, quality team.
What are the milestones you plan to achieve in the next six months?
We are seeing strong demand as we work through this year’s sales cycle and will broaden our national footprint materially over the next 6 months, bringing the Summus solution to millions of people. We also expect to deepen and build new partnerships with Centers of Excellence who support our solution and also leverage Summus’ SaaS platform to power new patient engagement strategies. Finally, we will be investing in our data capabilities internally and with select partners to deepen our ability to engage with our members and drive quantifiably better outcomes across the continuum of care.
What advice can you offer companies in New York that do not have a fresh injection of capital in the bank?
I don’t think it’s anything groundbreaking, but the importance of cash management cannot be overstated. Work as efficiently and diligently as possible to achieve product-market fit, get to profitability, and you will have leverage to finance the business.
Where do you see the company going now over the near term?
We are relentlessly focused on creating a unique value proposition and experience for leading doctors and helping families feel more powerful in healthcare. Summus is a next-generation virtual specialty care platform that can be a powerful lever for employers to support their people. We are excited about our opportunity and mission. Through a combination of strong commercial execution, strategic partnerships, and global adoption of virtual care, we see a tremendous growth path ahead for Summus.
What’s your favorite outdoor dining restaurant in NYC?
My family lives in Connecticut, but I always enjoyed Via Carota. Great vibe and neighborhood.
