Yes Health closes $6 million Series A to expand digital health platform

SAN FRANCISCO, April 15, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Yes Health, a leading digital health provider focused on weight loss, nutrition counseling and preventing type 2 diabetes, today announced $6 million in new Series A funding led by Khosla Ventures. Yes Health is a fully CDC-recognized lifestyle and behavioral-change system that combines personalized coaching with a mobile-based platform that helps members prevent and manage chronic conditions through better diets, exercise and well-being.

Using AI that augments human health coaching, Yes Health delivers personalized therapy for members at the right time directly to their smartphones, and its in-the-moment coaching generates up to 12 times the learning moments compared to programs that use phone- or video-based coaching.

"Americans are more conscious than ever about their health, and digital health has become one of the most important markets for innovation," said Samir Kaul, founding partner and managing director of Khosla Ventures. "Yes Health is proven to tackle difficult and costly chronic conditions through an AI-augmented and all-mobile solution, aligning it with our firm's thesis in healthcare."

According to the CDC, approximately 34 million Americans had diabetes in 2018, and an astonishing 88 million have prediabetes. Type 2 diabetes specifically, which is often caused by obesity, can create significant cost problems for both individual patients and the system as a whole. Just the diagnosed cases alone cost the U.S. healthcare system $327 billion each year, and patients struggling with diabetes have healthcare costs that are more than 230 percent the average American.

These health and cost implications are even more problematic during an infectious disease outbreak, because health resources are strained, people can't exercise or see their doctors as easily, and it's harder to maintain healthy behaviors. As a result, digital health has become a recommended way to maintain continuity of care, especially for those with underlying conditions like diabetes or obesity that are often at greater risk.

"Diabetes and obesity are major, yet still addressable, epidemics in their own right that put tremendous pressure on the U.S. healthcare system. At Yes Health, we've invested significantly to combine the best of Silicon Valley technology with the compassionate care of the best health care professionals to give back people control over their health," said Alexander Petrov, founder and CEO of Yes Health. "Now more than ever it's crucial that we don't allow one health crisis to exacerbate others, needlessly driving up human suffering and societal cost."

Yes Health serves tens of thousands of people and is offered directly to consumers or through their employers or health plans. Members on average lose more than five percent of their starting weight, regularly exercise more than 150 minutes per week and increase their nutrition scores to "healthy" within 13 weeks.

Because of the platform's unique combination of advanced automation, artificial intelligence and human support, major health plans have already started offering Yes Health to their members at no cost because it can scale to large health populations at attractive "value unit economics."

Yes Health plans to use the funds to grow its staff, expand its platform and scale its operation.

About Yes Health
Yes Health is the first fully CDC-recognized, all-mobile diabetes prevention program with in-the-moment coaching designed to empower people everywhere to start living healthier, happier lives. Our team of physicians, health coaches and engineers has created a high-engagement, lifestyle-change platform that's low-cost, easy to follow and successful in type 2 diabetes prevention and weight loss. Yes Health helps people take charge of their health -- and have fun doing it -- by developing healthy habits that last a lifetime. For more information, visit www.yeshealth.com.

SOURCE Yes Health

Related Links

http://www.yeshealth.com