Drips in Akron, Ohio, has received an unspecified investment from Blue Venture Fund to accelerate the growth of its conversational texting technology in the health care market.
The investment is aimed at enabling Drips to use its conversational artificial intelligence platform to connect health care organizations with their members and patients, the Akron company said in a press release.
Just as important, the investment could give Drips the access to deploy its messaging technology at a large scale within Blue Cross Blue Shield companies, said Aaron Christopher (A.C.) Evans, Drips' CEO, in the release.
The Blue Venture Fund is a collaboration among Blue Cross Blue Shield companies, the Blue Cross Blue Shield Association and Chicago-based Sandbox Industries, Drips said.
"The Blue Venture Fund is committed to connecting high-growth companies with Blue Cross Blue Shield entities to reduce costs, enable better member experiences and improve care delivery in the changing health care marketplace," said Bo Shi, a Blue Venture Fund vice president, in Drips' release.
Thirty-five Blue Cross Blue Shield companies have committed more than $890 million across four funds to invest in emerging companies of strategic relevance to their medical insurance plans.
The Drips platform is backed by a proprietary natural-language processing model that simulates two-way, humanized conversations, the Akron company said.
More than half a billion conversations have been handled by the platform, the company said.
