Health care startup Carbon Health has raised an additional $28 million for its Series B round, the company announced Monday.
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The new funding, from existing investor DCVC, has helped the business triple its headcount from 100 employees to more than 300 as the company focuses on testing and care during the COVID-19 pandemic.
“Expanding our testing efforts and virtual care footprint will help to reduce the pressure on local hospitals and clinics focused on COVID care, provide non-COVID patients the care they need without putting themselves at risk of exposure, and ensure communities across the country are healthy and well as we look towards reopening our economies,” CEO Eren Bali said in a statement.
The company decided to go ahead with a Series B extension in early March, around the time it decided it needed to be on the front lines of the emerging COVID-19 pandemic, Bali said in an interview with Crunchbase News
“We also realized that if we want to be aggressive, we have to strengthen our balance sheet,” he said.
Carbon Health has set up a mobile testing clinic to serve the Bay Area, with a rapid COVID-19 test. Overall, the company has completed more than 12,000 COVID-19 tests across its clinics, COVID-19 mobile clinics, and partnerships with Los Angeles County and the City of San Francisco, according to Carbon Health.
The company offers its virtual care services in 16 states across the United States, and plans to be in all 50 by the summer. It’s continuing to hire, with Bali pointing out the need to employ health care workers who have been furloughed.
“In a pandemic like this, it’s ridiculous for health care staff to be furloughed and be waiting on the sidelines,” he said.
Telehealth has seen a bit of a boom since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in March. With patients seeking to avoid overrunning hospitals, many have turned to telehealth services for consultations and care.
According to the company, Carbon Health itself has processed 14,000 coronavirus concerns from patients through its Coronavirus Assessment Tool. Virtual care usage for Carbon Health is up 900 percent between January and the end of March/beginning of April, Bali said, with many of those people using telemedicine for the first time.
The company had just started rolling out a COVID-19 at-home test in March, but paused the service after the Food and Drug Administration said the at-home sample collections were not covered by its emergency use authorization. No patients had received results when the service was put on hold. However, Carbon Health’s lab partner, Curative Labs, recently received emergency use authorization from the FDA, and is working with the agency for additional approvals before the at-home tests will be available for patients, according to a company spokeswoman.
Carbon Health raised $30 million in a Series B round led by Brookfield Asset Management in June 2019, according to Crunchbase. Other investors in the company include Javelin Venture Partners and Bullpen Capital.
Editor’s Note: This story was updated post-publication to reflect new information provided by the company. Carbon Health raised $28 million, not $26 million.
Illustration Credit: Li-Anne Dias
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