Athenahealth founder’s latest health tech venture lays track. Jonathan Bush’s new venture, Zus Health, is being pitched to tech founders as providing a ‘Lego’ like back-end for startup digital health companies. Variously compared to ‘Build-A-Bear’ or track laying, it’s an ‘in a box’ setup that provides a data record back end, a software development kit (SDK) with tools and services, and a patient interface. Presumably, this will also assist interoperability. Mr. Bush has enlisted an all-star team and is basing outside of Boston in the familiar area of Watertown, Massachusetts. Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) led the $34 million Series A, joined by F-Prime Capital, Maverick Ventures, Rock Health, Martin Ventures, and Oxeon Investments. The financing will be used for engineering the tech stack. Current clients developed in stealth include Cityblock Health, Dorsata, Firefly Health, and Oak Street Health. Not a breath about the revenue model other than ‘partnership’. Make sure you pronounce Zus as ‘Zeus’ (Athena’s father for those who aren’t up on their Greek myths). Zus release, FierceHealthcare

This week’s IPO filing by insurtech/clinic operator Bright Health with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) confirmed earlier reports that the offering will crest over $1 billion [TTA 28 May]: 60 million shares with an initial valuation of $20 to $23 is at a minimum of $1.2 billion. Company valuation is estimated at $14 billion which is about midpoint of earlier estimates. It will trade on the NYSE under BHG. The cherry on the cake is a 7.2 million 30-day share purchase option to their underwriters at the initial IPO price. Timing is not addressed in the release but expect it soon. BHG release, Mobihealthnews

Lyra Health banks an additional $200 million. This week the corporate mental health therapy provider completed their Series F $200M financing backed by Coatue, new investor Sands Capital, plus existing investors, for a total of $675 million to date (Crunchbase). Valuation is now estimated at $4.6 billion. Mental and behavioral health tech remains warm, with the thundercloud on the horizon Teladoc’s myStrength app [TTA 14 May]. Lyra’s strong corporate footprint puts them, along with Ginger, in a desirable place for acquisition by a telehealth provider or payer. Lyra release, FierceHealthcare

Drug discovery and development company Valo Health is going the SPAC route with Khosla Ventures. The special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) Khosla Ventures Acquisition Co. will form with Valo Health a new company (KVAC) with a pro for­ma mar­ket val­ue of approx­i­mate­ly $2.8 bil­lion with an initial cash balance of $750 million including a $168 million PIPE led by Khosla Ventures. Valo’s flagship is the Opal Computational Platform that creates an AI-based platform for drug discovery. The current pipeline has two clin­i­cal-stage assets and 15 pri­or­i­tized pre-clin­i­cal assets across car­dio­vas­cu­lar meta­bol­ic renal, neu­rode­gen­er­a­tion, and oncol­o­gy fields. Khosla has been largely absent from digital health investments. The SPAC route to IPOs has also cooled. Valo release, Mobihealthnews  

And short takes on other news… (more…)