Virta Health, a type 2 diabetes management program provider through its virtual coaches, raised $133 million at over $2 billion in valuations.
The Series E funding round was led by Tiger Global. The company plans to accelerate its efforts to drive widespread adoption of its telehealth-powered diabetes reversal treatment. The financing will also help support its growth in research and product innovation, as well as enable Virta’s commercial team to meet the demand for diabetes reversal from employers, health plans, and the government.
Besides, the company will use the financing to speed up the efforts to make diabetes reversal available to more of the 30 million Americans struggling with type 2 diabetes.
According to the company, nearly half of U.S. adults suffer from type 2 diabetes or prediabetes. Despite a large number of dollars spent on diabetes and related conditions over the past decade, there has been no improvement in population-level outcomes. The COVID-19 pandemic has made matters worse. People with diabetes are at high risk for severe illness from COVID-19, and the risk of dying from the disease is twice as high compared to those without diabetes.
Virta Health approach provides a unique solution to the metabolic crisis. In a peer-reviewed clinical study, 94% of patients using insulin decrease or eliminate their dosage at one year, and 63% of all diabetes prescriptions are eliminated. Medication reduction occurs simultaneously with an average drop in HbA1c (a measure of blood sugar) of 1.3%.
Scott Shleifer of Tiger Global commented: “Virta is redefining how diabetes and other chronic diseases should be cared for, delivering significantly better health outcomes and impressive cost savings. We are excited to partner with Virta as its pioneering approach becomes an invaluable benefit offering for more employers and health plans everywhere.”
“The norm in diabetes care has been more medications, more weight gain, and more suffering. Diabetes reversal changes this. We have shown a path for people to live medication and diabetes-free, and this investment is about reaching even more people and taking diabetes reversal mainstream”, said Sami Inkinen, Virta Health Co-founder and CEO.
According to Mercom’s Q1 2021 Digital Health Funding and M&A report, telehealth companies raised a record $2.4 billion in Q1 2021.
