A $45 million round of funding led by Goldman Sachs will help Mesa-based health company eVisit build out its virtual care platform.
This Series B funding brings eVisit's total raise since inception to $75 million after the company raised $14 million last October, said Bret Larsen, co-founder and CEO of eVisit.
Also participating in this latest round is Texas Health Resources, Health Catalyst co-founders Tom Burton and Steve Barlow and existing insiders.
"The demand to participate from our existing investors was greater than we were able to satisfy," Larsen said.
It's the second major investment announced in a Valley company by Goldman Sachs in the past week, in the wake of an even larger investment by the New York City financial services giant in Phoenix business communications company Nextiva.
The eVisit Virtual Care platform is designed to help health systems and hospitals to leverage telehealth and deliver locally relevant remote care.
"The technology platform was created for brick and mortar health systems to combat direct-to-consumer telehealth providers who deliver episodic care to people via telehealth from a centralized call center outside the local community," said Miles Romney, eVisit co-founder and chief technology officer. "This breaks the patient-provider connection."
Instead, he said, eVisit is connecting providers with patients, helping its customers operate effective virtual care programs driving health equity, improving patient outcomes and population health while reducing health-care costs.
The coronavirus pandemic sparked many physician offices and hospital systems to beef up their telehealth programs last year.
For one of eVisit's customers — Phoenix-based Banner Health, the state's largest health system and private employer — eVisit onboarded more than 7,000 providers in just a few weeks, Romney said.
Doubling revenue
Landing at 2,300 on this year's Inc. 5000 list with 186% annual revenue growth, eVisit is on track to double 2021 revenue over 2020, Larsen said.
Already employing more than 120 people, plans call for adding another 100 by the end of the year, Romney said.
"We are looking to hire new team members in many functions, including sales, marketing, product development and engineering, among others," he said.
Michael Hool, founder partner of Hool Coury Law PLC specializing in venture capital and founder of Hool Ventures, said capital is definitely flowing into Arizona.
"I've done nine venture rounds this year, and three of them were Arizona companies," Hool said. "Two of them were Series B and one was Series C, which is good. That means later rounds are getting funded, which shows progress and high growth."
What's also good for Arizona is that venture capital funding is coming from all over the world, and not just California, Hool said.
Hool said he's watched eVisit grow since it was founded in 2015.
"Having seen them from the startup phase and the pitches to the various investors — from angel groups to early stage funds — it's encouraging to see they're getting funded at that level in Arizona," Hool said.
"I was talking with a firm in Atlanta in a deal and they said they are seeing quality companies from Arizona come to their attention and it looks like there 'are good things going on' in Arizona," he added.
