Brooklyn-based Cityblock Health announced Monday it picked up a sizable infusion of new funding to put toward its goal of bringing more equitable healthcare to those who need it.
Cityblock teams up with community-based organizations and health plans in order to deliver health services to people on Medicaid and lower-income Medicare recipients.
Cityblock partners with insurance providers in order to manage the care of individual patients. This way, Cityblock is on the hook for providing medical, mental health and other services. If care is more expensive, Cityblock handles the cost. If Cityblock is able to provide quality care at a lower cost, it splits these savings with the insurer.
This model has proved successful for Cityblock. In December, the company announced that it raised $160 million in a Series C funding round — bringing its valuation to over $1 billion.
Now just three months later, Cityblock has revealed that it extended its Series C, and raised an additional $192 million in funding. This brings the company’s total capital raised to about $500 million.
Cityblock launched out of Alphabet’s Sidewalk Labs in 2017. Since then, the company has been able to reduce emergency room visits for its members by 15 percent, and reduce in-patient hospital stays by 20 percent. It has achieved 70 percent member engagement with its platform, which is much higher than the 5-7 percent average among other health plans.
COVID-19 has exacerbated the inequities of the U.S. healthcare system, with older and lower-income Americans being affected the most. Since Cityblock caters to these individuals, it was able to provide a much-needed lifeline last year. It also recently announced its plans to open a permanent COVID-19 vaccination site in New York.
Cityblock is experiencing 3x revenue growth year over year, and this new funding will allow it to build off that growth. The company plans to use the new capital to bring its services to more people and expand to new markets. Right now, Cityblock serves 70,000 members across New York, Connecticut, Massachusetts and Washington, D.C.
“We’re incredibly proud and grateful that some of the world’s best and brightest healthcare minds have joined us,” Cityblock CEO and co-founder Iyah Romm said in a statement. “But more than anything, we’re excited for what this level of capital investment means for our member population. It’s clear that there is increased awareness of this massive problem of health inequity. We’re starting to see urgency from investors and industry leaders alike.”
