After closing a significant funding round, RepeatMD founder and CEO Philipp Sitter is looking for more opportunities to reform customer experience, using a strategy he believes every company will need to embrace to keep customers around.
Houston-based RepeatMD, which develops white-label rewards program software for clients in the wellness space such as med spas and aesthetics practices, closed a $50 million Series A round co-led by Palo Alto, California-based Centana Growth Partners and New York-based Full In Partners. The funding round also includes a $10 million debt equity facility from Silicon Valley Bank, according to a Nov. 27 news release.
Sitter told the Houston Business Journal in an interview that the funds will go toward building go-to-market teams for expanding RepeatMD’s services outside of its predominant markets of dermatology, plastic surgery and medical spas. The rewards program software itself will also be improved, Sitter said.
“There’s so much to do [in terms of potential program improvements],” Sitter said. “Whether it’s cataloging, machine learning or artificial intelligence for the patient, or decision-making information for the wellness practice, those are all things we’re focused on.”
Sitter said that the company would continue hiring to meet demands but could not provide a specific targeted headcount. RepeatMD currently employs around 130 people, he said.
The round came nine months after Houston-based venture capital firm Mercury Fund LP seeded RepeatMD. Mercury did not disclose the seed valuation but confirmed to the HBJ that the investment came from its recently closed $160 million Mercury Fund V. Sitter said the company accepted the seed after it became profitable already, which made RepeatMD’s sales pitch to future investors easier.
RepeatMD also grew its leadership team, adding executives such as Chief Revenue Officer Matt Suraci, who joined from the fintech company Klarna in January 2023. Sitter said once its leadership team was complete, it was time for RepeatMD to land a Series A round.
Silicon Valley Bank’s contribution to the round comes in the wake of its collapse in 2023, sending shockwaves throughout the national startup ecosystem. HBJ sister publication Triangle Business Journal reported in October that First Citizens Bank had completed early phases of integrating SVB into its operations, and SVB has continued making investments, Atlanta Inno reported.
Sitter admitted that initially he had reservations about SVB’s contributions, but getting to work directly with the bank post-restructuring cleared up any doubts he had.
RepeatMD has seen a 2,519% increase in gross merchandise value revenue and a 130% increase in software-as-a-service revenue in the past 12 months, the company said. While RepeatMD had capitalized on a “Zoom boom” spurred by the Covid-19 pandemic, the market for rewards program has not shown signs of slowing down post-pandemic, Sitter said.
“I looked at our strategy as a new way for wellness practices to add revenue, the same way Uber Eats adds revenue to a restaurant,” Sitter said. “During times of high revenue, people don’t think about making more, but as things start tightening, businesses look for ways to cut costs or make more money, and we’re in that make-more-money category.”
Why the restaurateur-turned-startup-CEO is staying in town
RepeatMD was born in 2021 after Sitter, a former restaurateur behind King’s BierHaus and more, launched Houston-based VIPInsiders, a mobile rewards platform for restaurants. That success led Butterfly MedSpa to approach Sitter with an idea for how he could turn that platform into a business serving wellness clinics.
Two years on, Sitter is still proud of his company's Houston roots. He credited a large portion of RepeatMD’s current success to Aziz Gilani, Mercury’s managing director, who was around for growth advice.
“Being a first-time software founder, I just found it important to have something homegrown,” Sitter said. “Mercury was the perfect match for that. We’re really proud of being from Houston and working with local folks.”
The Greater Houston Partnership’s 2022 Tech Report highlighted oil and gas as well as oncology and life sciences as standout verticals for technology companies in the Bayou City, but Sitter believes that niches are present for business-to-consumer companies to grow in, especially as there is less competition compared to other startup hubs like Austin. He also praised the depth of Houston’s technology talent pool.
“I found the hiring pool to be really strong for our customer support, our implementation teams, and a lot of our sales teams, which are locally-based,” Sitter said. “If you’re one of the few fast-growing software startups in Houston, you become a bit of a darling for the hiring pool.”
In March 2022, RepeatMD subleased 15,000 square feet at 5599 San Felipe St. in the Galleria area from the Houston-based oil field services company Schlumberger Ltd. (NYSE: SLB).
