Premji Invest leads $126 million round in US company

BENGALURU: Premji Invest, the investment firm of Wipro’s founder chairman Azim Premji, has led a $126 million funding in Boston-based primary care provider Iora Health. Existing investors Cox Enterprises, Temasek F-Prime Capital, Devonshire Investors, 406 Ventures, Flare Capital Partners, Polaris Partners, and Khosla Ventures participated in the round.
"At Premji Invest, we see the dire need - and ripe opportunity - for innovation in healthcare," said Dhiraj Malkani, partner, Premji Invest."The team at Iora is at the forefront of this transformation. The impact they have already made on the thousands of patients they serve is impressive and we're most excited about the future development and growth that will lead to making even larger impact on both people and the bottom line."
Iora’s provides personalised care by improving outcomes and lowering the cost of healthcare. Patients get access to a health coach, providing better access to care via phone, text messages and email tracking health goals. It counts Aetna, Boeing, Grameen PrimaCare and Humana among its customers. It has a two-year compound annual growth rate of over 70% and the company has 48 practices across the US serving thousands of Medicare beneficiaries.
Iora, in a press statement, said they will use the funding to accelerate growth and refine and optimise their care model. Additionally, Iora is increasing its investment in its proprietary collaborative care platform, Chirp, to deliver improved features to be certified as a Medicare Certified Electronic Health Records (EHR) system.
“Two of the most important new features are the capability to generate and consume standardised electronic patient information, and the ability to share such information to specialists and non-Iora providers via a standard encrypted messaging protocol called Direct,” it said.
The company's patients averaged over four visits in 2019 with twice as many electronic interactions with their care teams. The model drives a steep decrease of over 40% in hospitalisations because of better engagement and health.