Illustration: Sarah Grillo/Axios
Angle Health's $58 million Series A round will get the tech-enabled insurance carrier to profitability, CEO Ty Wang tells Axios.
Why it matters: Unit economics — like a path to breakeven — are becoming increasingly significant for early-stage health tech companies and their investors.
How it works: Angle is a full-stack health insurance carrier delivering customized healthcare benefits tailored to small to midsize businesses.
- Along with providing benefits, the company offers care navigation to help members access behavioral health, telehealth and disease management services.
- The company counts NFP, Gallagher, GBS/Leavitt, Aon and Hub among its customers.
- Angle partners with Cigna to give its members access to a national network of health care providers, Wang says.
Details: Angle generates "tens of millions" in revenue, Wang says, declining to be specific.
- The round was led by Portage, with participation from PruVen Capital, Wing Venture Capital, SixThirty Ventures, Mighty Capital, Wormhole Capital, Mindset Ventures, Aloft VC, and Pilot founder Waseem Daher.
- The Series A was raised in two tranches, Wang tells Axios. Angle raised $21 million in equity and $10 million in debt over the summer before Portage came in to lead another $27 million infusion, he says.
- Existing investors Blumberg Capital, Correlation Ventures, TSVC and Y Combinator participated.
Of note: Publicly traded "insurtechs" like Oscar Health, Bright Health Group and Clover Health — most of which operate in the direct-to-consumer health insurance market and are thus not directly competing with Angle — have pruned their market presence in a bid to reach profitability.
What they're saying: Angle's customization differentiates it from other market players, Wang says.
- Small and medium-sized businesses "are generally limited to 'off the shelf' plans, which can make transitions confusing for their employees and disrupt existing access to care," Wang says.
- "We can customize these health plan packages for the employer based on their needs," he says, noting that 80% of Angle's health plans are tailored.
Between the lines: Portage has a long history of investing in the insurance sector generally, but Angle is its first North American health care play.
- "Our LP base includes quite a few insurance companies that have strong relationship networks within the health care and health insurance space," says Portage partner Ricky Lai.
The intrigue: Angle sees itself as an eventual provider of care, much like its larger payor peers (cough, Optum), Wang says.
- "We primarily provide the connectivity and the coordination around these benefits, whether they're administrative or clinical," Wang says. "There's definitely an opportunity and a potential play there for also being the providers ourselves and delivering the actual medical care."
State of play: Alongside major commercial insurance carriers, independent third-party administrators like Collective Health and Flume also serve the employer-based benefits market.
- Last year, Flume Health raised $30 million in Series A funding at a valuation of $100 million, while Collective Health in 2021 collected $280 million in Series F financing at a $1.5 billion valuation.
- TPAs like these typically serve large companies (500 to 1,000-plus staff) that have the resources to internally design and offer customized health plans — and neither take on full risk, Wang says.
- "Even third-party administrative services, there are start-up health plans that do just that, but they don't do the underwriting or they don't take on the risk," says Angle co-founder Anirban Gangopadhyay.