While we’re on the subject of symptom checkers (Babylon Health below), K Health, a competitor in the US HQ’d in NYC, but also based in Tel Aviv, announced today their win of $48 million in a Series C funding round, led by 14W and Mangrove Capital Partners. Lerer Hippeau, Anthem (also a partner), Primary Ventures, and others participated. Their total funding is $97 million since November 2016. The new funding, according to Crunchbase News, will be used to scale the model, expand primary care to mobile devices, and expand to international markets. 

K (as they call themselves) concentrates on three areas. One is an AI-powered symptom checker that uses millions (they state) of anonymized medical records to provide a virtual consult. According to Crunchbase, the medical records came from Israel’s second-largest HMO, Maccabi, over 20 years. The app questions the user based on previous answers. K contrasts it to static protocols, or rules-based symptom checking. The second is to provide a primary care visit via text for $19/visit (or unlimited for $39/year) with free follow-ups over two weeks. The third is mental health, specifically treatment for anxiety and depression, a growing area both online and via mobile. The $29/month fee covers unlimited doctor visits and delivered prescription medication, excepting meds that require blood testing.

The symptom checker is available throughout the US and primary care in 47 states. According to Crunchbase’s interview with CEO Allon Bloch, they recently passed their 3 millionth user and are now available in Spanish. The company has grown in the past year from 80 to 200 people. Originally, the company linked to New York-based providers, but moved away from that to the primary care/text model. Their overall goal is to provide affordable diagnoses that are a lot more accurate than ‘Dr. Google’ and that steer the patient to the right care.

Should Babylon Health be serious about expansion to the US, they will be running up against K Health, as well as competitors such as 98point6. In the hybrid app-and-physical model, there are Carbon Health and One Medical. Also Mobihealthnews