Spora Health Raises $3 Million Seed Plus Funding Round Led by Refactor Capital, M13, and MaC Venture Capital, Appoints Dr. Louis Capponi as Chief Medical Officer
Primary Care Network for People of Color Aims to Correct Healthcare Inequalities
SAN FRANCISCO, Aug. 10, 2021 /PRNewswire/ — Spora Health, a telemedicine startup offering primary care services for people of color, announces a $3 million Seed Plus funding round led by M13, Refactor Capital, and MaC Venture Capital. Existing investors from the first round, including Human Ventures, Headwater Ventures, Techstars, and Alicia Jackson, CEO of Ever Now also participated.
This round builds upon a successful $1.1 million Seed round earlier this year bringing the total to $4.1 million. The round will accelerate Spora Health’s investment in hiring, product development and marketing initiatives to further expand the company’s footprint in the U.S. Currently, the company serves populations in Pennsylvania, Virginia, Florida and Tennessee.
In addition, Spora Health appoints Louis Capponi, MD, to the newly created position of chief medical officer, where he will oversee clinical development and regulatory initiatives. Dr. Capponi, who brings more than 25 years of experience in clinical leadership and business operations, previously held roles as Chief Medical Information Officer at Cleveland Clinic and Vice President and Chief Medical Informatics Officer at SCL Health in Denver, CO.
Spora Health patients get access to its care delivery platform and care team that consists of doctors, nurse practitioners, nutritionists and more. Its machine learning technology can predict risk profiles for patients and looks for chronic conditions like pre-diabetes, hypertension, emphysema and more.
“Culturally competent clinicians, if properly trained, can save and extend BIPOC healthspans,” said Zal Bilimoria, Refactor Capital, founding partner. “Spora Health is leading the way.”
Spora Health is the only primary care network that offers a virtual first solution designed specifically for people of color. The company offers patients membership-based telemedicine services for common health ailments, including allergies, cold and flu, common infections, digestive system, musculoskeletal, reproductive system, and skin conditions such as wounds, burns, rashes, acne, eczema.
“The way healthcare is being delivered to Black patients and people of color is going through an important and necessary change. Both providers and patients need culture centered care models to support this change,” said Dan Miller, founder and chief executive officer of Spora Health. “We are building a comprehensive solution to ensure this patient population is receiving proper care once and for all.”
The company’s mission is to better serve people of color and, in order to do so, Spora Health requires their medical providers to go through an interview process and participate in the Spora Institute, which serves to help them understand their implicit biases and become culturally sensitized to the needs of this underserved group.
About Spora Health
Spora Health is an online healthcare platform that empowers people of color to navigate their healthcare journey. Founded in 2019 by Dan Miller, Spora Health is designed to improve lives with culturally-centered primary care. Spora Health offers patients direct access to trained medical providers through machine-learning technology all in the palm of their hand. Visit SporaHealth.com to learn more.
This article was written on Yahoo Finance.
