Vida Health raises $25 million to treat chronic health conditions remotely

Vida Health, a virtual health care platform that connects people with chronic ailments to professional therapists and coaches, has raised $25 million to meet the “increased demand” for remote care — particularly around mental health.

As with other virtual health-focused platforms, Vida said that it has seen a spike in demand for its service during the COVID-19 pandemic, which has pushed millions of businesses and consumers into lockdown. Indeed, the company said that since COVID-19 was declared a pandemic in early March, it has launched to more than 500,000 new end users, bringing the total number of people covered by its platform to over 1.4 million.

Founded out of San Francisco in 2014, Vida targets those with conditions such as diabetes, depression, anxiety, and high blood pressure, and pairs them with a personal trainer, nutritionist, nurse, therapist, or other relevant support professional. The company’s platform also leverages machine learning to crunch data and personalize each user’s treatment plan. The Vida app can integrate with many popular health and fitness apps and devices, including Fitbit and Apple Watch, giving coaches direct access to their users’ vital stats — with this data, they can develop and tailor plans as the data changes over time. Built-in messaging and chat functionality also allows them to communicate in real time.

Enterprises represent a major part of Vida’s target market, and it’s typically offered as part of a company’s health care benefits. Vida also sells device “bundles” that include contraptions such as heart-rate monitors, scales, blood pressure cuffs, activity trackers, glucometers, and more.

Above: Vida Health bundle

Health boom

Prior to now, Vida had raised $53 million, and with another $25 million in the bank it’s well-financed to capitalize on what will likely prove to be a boom period for the virtual health care industry. Pre-pandemic figures from MarketsAndMarkets had the global telehealth market pegged as a $25 billion industry, and this had been expected to double within five years. However, with the coronavirus forcing industries across the spectrum to adapt to social distancing, the telehealth market could be set to grow exponentially.

In the past few weeks alone, we’ve seen some sizable funding rounds plowed into the remote health care realm. Tyto Care, for example, raised $50 million to grow its telehealth examination and diagnostic platform, which includes a health kit that anyone can use at home to test their lungs, heart, throat, ears, skin, abdomen, and body temperature and transmit the data to their doctor. And earlier this week, Medici, which is a little like WhatsApp for remote medical care, secured $24 million.

Vida’s latest funding round was led by global life science investment firm Ally Bridge Group (ABG), with participation from Yahoo cofounder Jerry Yang’s AME Cloud Ventures, Nokia-backed NGP Capital, Aspect Ventures, Canvas Ventures, Webb Investment Network, and Workday Ventures.