Morgan Health joins Embold round

Morgan Health, the health care business of JPMorgan Chase, joined a $23 million funding round for Embold Health, a health care navigation company designed to help assess provider quality.

Why it matters: The investment is Morgan Health’s second bet on a health care startup following its $50 million backing of primary care company Vera Whole Health last August.

Details: This time around, rather than investing alone, Morgan Health is joining a larger Series B led by Echo Health Ventures — contributing $5 million alongside other backers including Chrysalis Ventures and Whistler Capital Parters.

Be smart: JPMorgan unveiled Morgan Health following the demise of Haven, its once highly-regarded — but ultimately dysfunctional — venture with Amazon and Berkshire Hathaway.

• Led by the famed surgeon and author Atul Gawande, Haven was an attempt to cut skyrocketing health care costs and boost access to quality care.
• Similarly, Morgan Health is focused on increasing access to value-based forms of health care for those with employer-sponsored health insurance.
• Morgan's backing of Vera and Embold — along with a research partnership with Kaiser Permanente — is intended to help achieve those goals.
• “We are committed to concepts of accountable care,” says Dan Mendelson, CEO of Morgan Health. “Health care navigation is an input that allows consumers to have more control.”

What’s next: Morgan Health has “300 companies in the pipeline" that it may back in the future, Mendelson tells Erin. “Ultimately, we want to make care more accessible to our employees.”