San Francisco-based startup CareMessage announced a series of grants that will enable the organization to bring its technology to millions of low-income patients in order to help them live healthier lives. The non-profit startup develops technology to improve healthcare delivery and management for patients in medically underserved areas of the United States through the use of mobile phones. The platform and associated disease management programs enable healthcare organizations to facilitate text and voice messaging-based outreach to promote greater patient engagement and improved self-care.
Several Prominent Investors
CareMessage’s fundraising campaign, which started in March 2014 upon graduation from Y Combinator, is being led by The Pershing Square Foundation, which has committed $1.5 million over two years. The Pershing Square Foundation joins more than two dozen institutional and individual donors, including the prestigious venture philanthropy firm Draper Richards Kaplan Foundation, the Ralph M. Parsons Foundation, the William K. Bowes Jr. Foundation, Peter Bing, Paul Buchheit, Coleman Fung, Chris Eyre,Joseph Gleberman, Matt Glickman, Wilfred Jaeger, Kathy Kemper, John Kissick, Lata Krishnan, John Levin,Antony Ressler and Gene Tiger Sykes. Collectively these institutions and individuals have donated over $3.7 million in multi-year support, bringing the total amount raised by CareMessage since inception to $4.2 million.
“The commitment of prestigious and innovative philanthropic institutions like The Pershing Square Foundation and the generosity of our extraordinary donors will help CareMessage reach millions of patients over the next several years, moving us closer to our goal of ensuring that America’s underserved populations have the medical resources they need to live healthy, fulfilling, and productive lives,” said Vineet Singal, Co-Founder and CEO of CareMessage.
Growth in Number of Patients, Number of Partner Hospitals
These grants will enable the nonprofit, which is on track to reach a million patients by the end of 2015, to continue scaling its operations and impact. In the post-ACA era of healthcare, using CareMessage results in both better patient adherence to treatment protocols – and, ultimately, better treatment outcomes – as well as financial savings in operational costs for under-resourced providers nationally.
In the last 12 months since launching its product, CareMessage has grown to partner with some of the largest hospitals and health systems in the country, including the Sinai Health System and Stanford Health Care. At the same time, the company has provided its technology at no cost to dozens of free and charitable clinics in 12 states nationwide serving over 50,000 patients.
“This is a critical time for healthcare in this country and we strongly support CareMessage’s vision and commitment to making healthcare more accessible for low income communities through innovation and collaboration with medical institutions and patients,” said Paul Bernstein, CEO of The Pershing Square Foundation.
In addition to the grant, The Pershing Square Foundation board member William F. Doyle will join the board of CareMessage.
CareMessage was started in 2012. Co-founders Vineet Singal, Manuel Rivera, and Cecilia Corral are determined to transform healthcare for disadvantaged populations through the use of mobile phone technology. CareMessage received support from Stanford University, and the Y Combinator startup accelerator. In addition to creating innovative technology, CareMessage leverages a unique non-profit business model. It partners with large healthcare organizations that pay to use its technology, and then uses these revenues to offset the costs for free and charitable clinics, which receive the technology pro bono or at a heavily subsidized rate.