After leading Livongo Health to an $18.5 billion merger with Teledoc, Chicago entrepreneur Glen Tullman is back with his next startup, which is taking an even bigger swing in the health care space.
This month Tullman was officially named the CEO of Transcarent, a Silicon Valley startup that officially came out of stealth last week. Designed for employees of self-insured employers and their families, Transcarent acts as a digital overlay to existing health plans. It offers an app that lets users chat, call or video conference with a doctor in just 60 seconds, 24 hours a day. It will schedule an in-person doctor's appointment for you, focusing on providers with the best care and the lowest prices. It can help patients easily find and book a second opinion, and it will cover your travel expenses if you need to go out of town to receive better care.
And it does this at no cost to the patient, or any upfront cost to the employer. Instead, Transcarent takes a pre-negotiated percentage of the company's health care savings on the back end.
Transcarent raised a $40 million Series A round in October led by Hemant Taneja of General Catalyst and Lee Shapiro of Chicago-based 7wireVentures. Tullman is also a founder and managing partner at 7wireVentures. The startup also recently merged with BridgeHealth, a surgical solution for self-insured employers that offers more than 300 pre-negotiated surgical bundles.
Transcarent will publicly announce its first customers in the coming weeks, Tullman told me, which will include companies already on the BridgeHealth platform.
Transcarent is about changing the health care experience for patients, Tullman said, creating an easier, more efficient and cheaper way to access care. And given the scope of the business, he believes Transcarent has the opportunity to be an even bigger business than Livongo.
"The prospects of this business are dramatically larger, because the problem is dramatically larger," he said. "Livongo focused on chronic conditions. While that is enormous…we’re now looking at surgeries, medications and every aspect of the health care experience."
Tullman, who is based in Chicago, said Transcarent will build out a Chicago-based office and team. Livongo, which was also based in the Bay Area, grew its Chicago office to hundreds of employees.
"We're going to have Chicago offices," he said. "We love the Midwestern work ethic and Midwestern values."
