A digital health startup in Chicago raised funding from investors to bring better care to low-income communities, starting on Chicago's South and West sides.
Clinify Health announced that it raised $3.1 million in a seed round led by Boston's Seae Ventures, a VC firm that invests primarily in health care ventures led by women and people of color. Other backers include Better Ventures, Acumen America, the California Health Care Foundation and Chicago's Impact Engine.
Clinify works with clinics in underserved communities by helping them transition to value-based care, a payment model in the health care industry that incentivizes physicians and medical groups by providing them reimbursements based on health outcomes, not just how often someone comes in for a visit, CEO and co-founder Nathan Pelzer said.
Working with health clinics that serve primarily Medicaid patients, Clinify's platform automates the process of transitioning to value-based contracts and helps providers better manage their patients. It gives clinics better information on their patients, providing socioeconomic data on things like if a patient has access to a car or enough income to pay for their medications, Pelzer said.
"Over time, we measure and monitor a patient's health and make sure it's improving and not costing more than it should be," he said.
The startup is currently operational in Illinois and Georgia, with 35 clinics in Chicago. Clinify will soon expand to California, Tennessee and Minnesota, Pelzer said. It currently has 24 employees.
Pelzer was previously a senior leader at VillageMD, a Chicago health care startup that received a $1 billion investment from Walgreens to open hundreds of primary care clinics throughout the U.S. Pelzer is also the co-founder of Fifth Star Funds, a venture fund in Chicago that invests in Black founders. The fund, which writes checks between $25,000 and $50,000 per company, has so far invested in three startups.
"We’ve been able to fund companies that otherwise wouldn't have had a shot, either because where they were in their stage, or were overlooked by the system," Pelzer said.
