Your next oil change could come with a Covid-19 test.
On-site gas delivery and car-care startup Yoshi Inc. has launched Yoshi Health, founder and CEO Bryan Frist said, with at-home Covid-19 test delivery as its first service offering.
Yoshi is currently raising $10 million to fund its expansion into health care, Frist said, as well as other possible services, such as delivery of convenience store items, mobile car charging units and car insurance.
Yoshi Health operates through Yoshi’s existing app, and while the Nashville-based startup is currently only offering at-home Covid-19 tests, Frist expects Yoshi Health’s offerings to expand in 2022. For example, a possible new service for users could be to order a phlebotomist through Yoshi’s app to take an in-home blood sample, which would then be delivered to a local lab.
Yoshi began delivering Covid-19 tests just prior to Thanksgiving and has distributed more than 100 so far. Frist said the company is not marking up the price of the tests, instead selling them at-cost.
“There’s kind of a rush to get tested before the holidays, which we think is good. Also, we think that every medicine cabinet should have a Covid test in it,” Frist said. “The average person is ordering more than one [test]. We see offices getting together and ordering several as well.”
Yoshi’s entrance into the health care arena is notable given Frist’s family history. His uncle, Tommy Frist Jr., and his grandfather, Thomas Frist Sr., cofounded hospital giant HCA Healthcare Inc. more than 50 years ago, launching Nashville’s largest industry in the process. His father, former U.S. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, is a renown heart surgeon and health care investor.
Frist moved Yoshi’s headquarters from Silicon Valley to Nashville at the beginning of the year, and business has boomed since. The company launched its at-home, on-demand car maintenance app into three new states and 11 new cities in 2021, Frist said, helping Yoshi’s revenue quadruple.
Yoshi’s expansion outside of car care is not a pivot away from the auto industry, Frist said. instead it’s an opportunity to capitalize on consumer trends — and the startup’s app is easily adaptable to any type of home delivery. Plus, General Motors, which has invested $23 million into Yoshi, is supportive of the expansions, he said.
“If 2021 was all about growth of the core business … then 2022 will be about exploring how we might be able to leverage our tech platform that we built to power other verticals,” Frist said. “We think being in Nashville, surrounded by the best health care companies in the world — in particular health care services — gives us a big competitive advantage against the many, many companies trying to bring the hospital to the home.”
Yoshi's core business works as a subscription service for individuals or companies. Yoshi technicians visit “hundreds” of Nashville businesses, which often sign up for the service as a perk for their employees, on a weekly basis. That list includes, HCA, email marketing firm Campaign Monitor and health-tech firm MyNexus.
Yoshi has always used gas delivery as a “Trojan horse” to get consumers to order other services like oil changes, Frist said, and he believes the same will be true for health care services.
He also thinks Yoshi Health is an opportunity “to push forward” the health care industry — much like his father, uncle and grandfather have done.
“We sit in an interesting spot, and I sit in an interesting spot, where we went out to San Francisco and … have a lot of relationships in the tech world. But we straddle two worlds because we have the Nashville connection, and know a lot of the health care thought leaders and people making things happen,” Frist said. “I think Yoshi plays a role in bridging those two worlds in helping to basically transform the health care industry. This is a small way to start but I think it can grow into a big role for us. We think it's huge.”
