*By Christian Smith*
The medtech start-up Heal has raised $20 million with plans to expand its house-call service to more cities in the United States.
The company announced its latest round of funding Tuesday, bringing the amount that the three year-old company has raised to more than $69 million. Heal's co-founder and CEO Nick Desai said he wants to use the new capital to expand and improve the technology that doctors can use to treat patients.
"The secrete sauce of Heal thus far has been to lower the operating costs of everything from booking and billing compared to a traditional office so that our doctors can do house calls," Desai said Tuesday in an interview with Cheddar. "Now we want to innovate technologies for the in-home care so that doctors have more data and more intelligence with which to deliver more precision care to patients."
The new investment comes from Bascom Ventures, Inflection Capital, IRA Capital, RLJ Equity Partners, Trans-Pacific Partners, and others including BET founder Robert Johnson, who told Cheddar he got involved with the start-up to help reach minority communities.
"It brings health care to people who in many cases are under-served because of their neighborhood, because of their economic status, or other factors that deprive them of the quality health care that most people would like to have," Johnson said.
As health care costs continue to rise across the country, Heal said it's looking to offer a more affordable option. The company has said its tech platform lowers operating costs and medical bureaucracy by 65 percent, leading to lower prices for patients.
Heal is one of a handful of health care start-ups that are looking to change the traditional patient-practice structure, where doctors see an average of 40 patients a day. One Medical is a primary care start-up with a membership model that cuts costs by limiting the number of patients its doctors see daily and using video consultations instead of in-office visits.
Doctor On Demand, another new primary care option, [recently raised $74 million](https://techcrunch.com/2018/04/25/video-consultation-service-doctor-on-demand-raised-74-million-so-everyone-can-see-a-doctor-anytime/) to expand its video consultation service capabilities.
Though these tech-based care providers only make up a small part of the health care market, major insurance companies are getting on board. Heal is an in-network PPO option for Blue Shield of California, Health Net, Anthem Blue Cross, Aetna, United Health Care, CareFirst, and other plans. Outside of an accepted healthcare plan, patients can see a Heal doctor at home for $99.
Since launching in March 2015, Heal doctors have made more than 60,000 house calls. The service is available in most major cities in California and in Washington, D.C., and Northern Virginia.
For the full interview, [click here](https://cheddar.com/videos/doctor-house-call-start-up-heal-expanding).
Facebook parent Meta’s miss on Q4 earnings raised alarm bells amongst investors. The tech giant lost users for the first time as it invests a lot into the metaverse, its virtual realm, in the hopes that consumers will move their social media consumption there. The stock dropped around 25 percent on the report, and CEO Mark Zuckerberg chalked it up to people flocking toward apps like TikTok, even as his own platform attempts to make a big pivot to the metaverse future. "It's gonna take a long time to develop and it's gonna take a long time to bring to fruition," Rebecca Walser, president of Walser Wealth Management told Cheddar. "In the meantime, the world is moving on. We have a very short attention span, especially on social media, and we want the short little videos. And Tiktok has just taken off."
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Ed Butowsky, managing partner at Chapwood Investments, joined Wake Up With Cheddar to break down the disappointing takeaways from Spotify's Q4 earnings report, which sent the stock plunging.
Google parent company Alphabet saw yet another successful quarter reporting its final earnings report for 2021 on Tuesday. The tech giant beat Wall Street expectations across the board with much of that success owed to not only the growth of its cloud business, but also its multi-platform advertising. Joanna O'Connell, Principal Analyst at Forrester explains why advertising may be one of the keys to Alphabet’s future success.
Solid-state battery maker Factorial Energy recently raised $200 million in a Series D round led by Mercedes-Benz and Stellantis. Factorial says the funding will be used to accelerate commercial production and deployment of its solid-state battery technology, which the company says is safer, and offers up to 50% more driving range than current lithium-ion technology. Factorial also has joint development agreements (announced in late 2021) with Mercedes-Benz, Stellantis, and Hyundai, three of the top 10 global automotive manufacturers, to commercialize its batteries. Factorial CEO Siyu Huang joined Cheddar News' Closing Bell to discuss.
Google's parent company Alphabet reported blockbuster fourth quarter earnings, boosted by better-than-expected Google ad revenue and Google Cloud revenue. The results sent Alphabet's stock soaring, and the company could come close to hitting a $2 trillion market valuation similar to other tech giants Apple and Microsoft. The company also announced a 20-for-1 stock split, which would make shares more accessible to would-be investors. Mark Lehmann, CEO at JMP Securities, a Citizens Company, joins Closing Bell to discuss Alphabet's earnings report, whether the company will reach a $2 trillion market cap, its stock split, and more.
