With the surging interest in telehealth and digital health, the healthcare system is integrating more and more technology into practice. This evolution allows healthcare to be more person-centered and prevention-focused. Jasper Health is a cancer care navigation platform for both patients, their caregivers, and their healthcare providers. Developed after in-depth interviews with 2000+ cancer patients, the platform offers an end-to-end solution that organizes everything from day-to-day necessities to triage to coaching. The platform is completely free for patients as Jasper partners with health plans, health systems, and self-insured providers using a value-based care model, where the company’s compensation is directly tied to outcomes and engagement between patient and platform; ensuring that interests are aligned.
AlleyWatch caught up with Jasper Health CEO and Cofounder Adam Pellegrini to learn more about the inspiration for the business, the company’s strategic plans, latest funding round, which brings the total funding raised to $31M, and much, much more…
Who were your investors and how much did you raise?
This was Series A and we raised $25 million led by General Catalyst and including Human Capital, W Health Ventures, Redesign Health, and 7wireVentures.
Tell us about the product or service that Jasper Health offers.
Jasper combines a patient-focused experience with a sophisticated, personalized recommendation engine that drives meaningful, long-term engagement. Our patient members use Jasper to organize their day-to-day care, track medications, and log symptoms and side effects. On the clinical side, clinicians use the triage dashboard to see who needs help today, who may need help tomorrow and who is doing just fine with the digital navigation toolset. Jasper Care Advocates use the triage dashboard to check in on members and to proactively reach out if a member needs assistance. Our Care Advocates leverage secure messaging for asynchronous care and video virtual care tools to interact real time.
What inspired the start of Jasper Health?
Before a single line of code was written on Jasper, the team conducted over 2,000 interviews with cancer patients and their caregivers on what was missing. The top concerns identified included:
- Fear of the unknown: 47% of patients’ primary challenge is improving their health and quality of life, and 55% found it difficult to find relevant information to support them.
- A Myriad of Tasks & To-Do’s: Patients and caregivers have to handle everything themselves while dealing with the overwhelming question of ‘How can I help?” Over 80% of supporters want to help, but often don’t know how to.
- Cancer impacts your whole life: Newly diagnosed patients are given enough support just to make it through treatment but no guidance around mental health, nutrition, and sleep. Cancer is a radical lifestyle shift that no one is prepared for.
Along with these gaps identified by patients and caregivers, we know that the healthcare system is fragmented, filled with friction, and lacks the infrastructure to longitudinally and consistently address the psychosocial needs of cancer patients and caregivers. This has a dramatic impact on a patient’s quality of life, mental health and has an impact on treatment outcomes & recovery. Jasper was purpose-built to address the top concerns of our members (patients & caregivers) as well as provide the clinical tools to automate and scale empathetic psychosocial care at scale.
How is Jasper Health different?
Jasper Health is patient-focused and the only end-to-end cancer care solution in the market that is successfully meeting both the consumer (B2C) and marketplace (B2B) demand. The deep healthcare and health technology expertise on the Jasper team make us uniquely poised to bring to life a company that transforms the lives of those living with cancer, in the way that they deserve, improving outcomes and health, and reducing expenses associated with complications.
What market does Jasper Health target and how big is it?
Jasper Health is primarily focused on the following 3 market verticals: Health Plans, Health Systems, and Self-Insured Employers. Within these verticals, there are 16 million members with cancer, and the annual cost of cancer in the U.S. is $209 billion.
What’s your business model?
Jasper Health will be offered to health plans, health systems, and self-insured employers and goes at risk for our fees. We only get paid if we keep patients engaged on a regular basis. As we continue to build out the evidence base around our interventions, we will add additional models around value-based care and risk. This funding will allow us to go deeper into value-based models as we believe we can deliver on the dream of aligned incentives and reducing the total cost of care while delivering empathy at scale.
What are your post-COVID office plans?
The Jasper Health team is fully remote and always has been. We look forward to when we can have more in-person collaborations, but we will remain as a remote and work from home team.
What was the funding process like?
Jasper Health had inbound interest from investors months before we even launched the round. We were fortunate to not only secure our number one choice for leading the round, General Catalyst, but additional firms quickly joined including existing firms.
What are the biggest challenges that you faced while raising capital?
It is always a challenge to balance the intensity of a fundraising process with growing a young company.
What factors about your business led your investors to write the check?
Several factors including a seasoned leadership team, already having over 10,000 members on the platform, and the opportunity in the market to truly transform digital oncology.
What are the milestones you plan to achieve in the next six months?
Hire the top talent to take Jasper Health to market including leading data scientists, experienced product leaders, and seasoned sales leaders. It will be a fast and furious six months of forming and storming the market.
What advice can you offer companies in New York that do not have a fresh injection of capital in the bank?
Think in evolutions. What do you need now to get you to a specific set of milestones but plan for scale. I have spent over two decades in digital health and have seen companies spend money thinking of the short term but not planning a solid foundation for the long term business opportunity. I also always make sure we invest in differentiation early as it will serve as the beachhead for true transformation.
Where do you see the company going now over the near term?
Our passion is for patient-first driven experiences so building out capabilities that our current members have identified as high priority needs. We then plan to accelerate our GTM into health plans, health systems, and employers to connect members to the broader care team and clinical capabilities. Ultimately we believe we can prove a new approach of C2B2B allowing us to connect our direct-to-consumer member base to our B2B customers. This new model will show value end to end.
What’s your favorite outdoor dining restaurant in NYC?
I actually have to say my favorite restaurant is not outdoors but Ellens Stardust Diner.
