Ro, an online health provider out of NYC, announced Monday it closed on a $200 million Series C round, bringing its total funding raised to $376 million. The company says that, in just the last 15 months, its valuation has tripled to $1.5 billion.
Founded in 2017, Ro started as a company for men experiencing issues like hair loss and erectile dysfunction, issues they may not have felt comfortable speaking with a doctor in-person about. Roman, the company’s flagship service, connected these men with virtual doctor visits and medication delivery to help treat these conditions.
Now, Ro also offers Rory, a digital health clinic for women that focuses on treating everything from skin conditions like eczema to menopause symptoms, and Zero, which helps people quit smoking. Additionally, Ro Pharmacy offers more than 500 generic medications at a flat fee of $5 each. For each of these services, patients are put in touch with a remote care team, who help users address whatever conditions they need help with from the comfort of their home.
Ultimately, the goal of Ro is to take on a healthcare system that co-founder and CPO Saman Rahmanian describes as “inefficient, inaccessible and expensive.”
“As it exists today, patients do not control the flow of money at the point of purchase. As a result, healthcare institutions are not constantly competing over what patients need and want,” Rahmanian told Built In via email. “What’s more, the healthcare system is structurally imbalanced, with too many people who need care and too few providers.... We are addressing these structural issues by building a patient-centric healthcare system that leverages technology to give providers “super powers” so they can practice at the top of their license (e.g., more time for each patient, expanded geographical reach) and focus on what they do best — treat patients.”
So far, Ro says it has facilitated five million patient-physician interactions. The company plans to use this most recent funding round to begin offering remote patient monitoring for chronic disease management, urgent care and, eventually, at-home testing. The money will also be used to improve its Electronic Medical Record tool and develop a new Collaborative Care Center in order to provide treatment for more complex conditions.
In order to accomplish this, Ro will need to grow its team. So Rahmanian says the company plans to hire about 70 engineers in the next six months.
“The pandemic has showcased that now, more than ever, telehealth can serve as a complement to in-person care,” Rahmanian said. “As we expand the number of types of diagnostic data we can provide to providers practicing on Ro’s platform about an individual patient, we can expand not only the variety of conditions we can treat via telehealth but also the complexity of the treatment.”
