The pandemic has shown that telehealth is the gateway to the future of medicine. 23.6% of all healthcare interactions were via telehealth during the first four months of the pandemic, up from just .3% for the same period in 2019. Despite having one of the most expensive and sophisticated healthcare systems in the world, the US still has poor access to prenatal care for many expecting mothers; 10M+ women live in areas where obstetricians are limited and they must travel significant distances to see practitioners. Ruth Health is a telehealth platform for expecting and recent mothers to ensure they are able to receive reliable and continuous access to care during prenatal, perinatal, and postpartum stages. The platform works to complement visits to your obstetricians by providing support focused on pelvic floor training and recovery, lactation, and C-section recovery through exercises, one-on-one counseling, and health screening all without having to leave home. Traditional prenatal care models require at least 14 visits during an average pregnancy. For those with potentially high-risk pregnancies, telehealth allows for remote patient monitoring to detect any complications early.
LA TechWatch caught up with Ruth Health CEO and Cofounder Alison Greenberg to learn more about the business, the company’s strategic plans, latest round of funding, and much, much more…
Who were your investors and how much did you raise?
Excellent question. This was a $2.4M seed round, which brings Ruth Health’s total funding to date to $3.1M. The key investor who led this round was Giant Ventures, with participation from Citylight VC, Cleo Capital Scout Fund, Crista Galli Ventures, Duro VC, Emmeline Ventures, Gaingels, Global Founders Capital, Pentas Ventures, SOMA Capital, Techstars, Torch Capital, YCombinator, and various strategic angels.
Tell us about your product or service
Ruth Health is a female-founded, radically women-centric telehealth and comprehensive care platform that is revolutionizing women’s healthcare in America by empowering birthing people with remote prenatal, perinatal, and postpartum support services designed by women who truly understand the nuances of the pregnancy journey. We deliver quick, comprehensive, evidenced-based, and remote counseling sessions with licensed practitioners to help the 83% of women with Pelvic Floor Prolapse post-pregnancy, the 92% who experience breastfeeding challenges, and many birthing people beyond. These services include pelvic training, lactation support, C-section recovery resources, intimacy and sexual support, health screening tools, and exercises on demand.
What inspired the start of Ruth Health?
Ruth Health was created to address the huge, costly gaps in American pregnancy care, as evidenced by this country’s rising maternal mortality rates and frustratingly segmented after-birth care continuum. While speaking directly to about 150 pregnant (or recently pregnant) women at the beginning of the pandemic, Audrey Wu (cofounder) and I routinely heard that these women felt like quality, comprehensive care was inaccessible to them. They felt that nobody was listening to them, and the doctors just didn’t have time for them. It became really important to our team to address that need directly by creating services that someday could also address the bigger inequities behind birth. Take, for example, the fact that the U.S. has the highest maternal mortality rate of any nation in the developed world. That is totally unacceptable. How can a country that spends roughly $1 in every $3 on healthcare also be seeing consistently worse birthing outcomes? It makes no sense, which signals a prime opportunity to create a sustainable solution. As such, our founders leveraged their shared experiences within the tech and conversational AI worlds to build a telehealth platform that can streamline and optimize women’s healthcare, in a way that represents and supports the unique needs of women.
How is it different?
While the pandemic has given rise to countless new telehealth solutions and remote care providers, most of these new platforms still neglect to specifically, comprehensively, and accessibly address a core population of the American healthcare landscape: those who are pregnant or have recently been pregnant. We simply do not have enough dedicated resources and maternity care providers in this country relative to our number of births. And yet, those who survive their birthing experience(s) are still left to sort through a myriad of “messy,” isolating, and/or traumatic conditions that can continue long after giving birth and deeply alienate them from their closest relationships (and careers). Ruth Health is helping solve this devastating problem by putting women at the center of their pregnancy journey and providing key supplemental care services whenever and wherever they need them.
While these services have traditionally been considered secondary in the States, Ruth Health was built under the belief that they are core parts of the pregnancy and birthing journey and deserve that same level of care, support, and attention. Our platform works as an extension of a patient’s existing primary care physician and/or OBGYN (rather than replacing them) to offer birthing people the comprehensive care that they deserve in order to inclusively enhance the birthing experience, improve quality of life, and accelerate holistic healing and recovery without judgment. We’re working to break down taboos and uplift the birthing person’s voice within one of the most intensive healthcare experiences of their life.
What market are you targeting and how big is it?
Ruth Health was created for pregnant, birthing, and postpartum women. That’s a US market of about 3.6 million births per year and an estimated global market of $108 billion in pregnancy care, services, and products.
What’s your business model?
We operate on a fee-for-service model, with additional models for B2B partners and employee assistance programs. In the future, we’ll move access to our Care Hub into an additional subscription model, so pregnant and postpartum people can receive continuous access to providers, advice, asynchronous, and one-on-one care.
What are your post-COVID office plans??
We have always been a 100% remote company, with team members and providers across the US. As a telehealth brand, we’ll continue to remain remote-first throughout COVID and into the future.
What was the funding process like?
It was incredibly challenging to seek funding through venture capital, and required a lot of trial and error. The key was finding investors who, like us, were mission-driven, and believed that women’s health and health-tech is not a niche but a pivotal, growing market. Having been part of the YCombinator Summer ’21 batch, we also were very fortunate to have access to an incredible slate of investors who saw us pitch at Demo Day. That really got the ball rolling, and led us to incredible investors from our lead Cameron McLain at Giant Ventures, to Dr. Fiona Pajaratha of Crista Galli Ventures, and funds like Cleo Capital Scout Fund, Pentas Ventures, SOMA, and Citylight—all of which share a vision for the future of healthcare. We were also very lucky to see major value-add pre-seed investors return from Torch Capital and Emmeline Ventures, who have supported us from the start.
What are the biggest challenges that you faced while raising capital?
The odds. As female founders, we are only 2% of venture-backed entrepreneurs.
What factors about your business led your investors to write the check?
Most of our investors shared a focus on building efficiencies and access to healthcare. Some invested in us due to strong theses in the growth of women’s health, which for decades was treated like a “fledgling” market, but we all know covers 51% of the population. They also understood our belief in the consumerization of healthcare, a growing trend while coverage gets squeezed and consumers become more and more empowered with deeper health knowledge.
Most of our investors shared a focus on building efficiencies and access to healthcare. Some invested in us due to strong theses in the growth of women’s health, which for decades was treated like a “fledgling” market, but we all know covers 51% of the population. They also understood our belief in the consumerization of healthcare, a growing trend while coverage gets squeezed and consumers become more and more empowered with deeper health knowledge.
What are the milestones you plan to achieve in the next six months?
Over the next six months, we’re excited to launch our custom patient portal, build more resources into our Care Hub, and roll out new offerings in continuous care for patients. We call this “interstitial care,” where we fill the gaps between our 1:1 sessions in Pelvic Training and Recovery, C-Section Recovery, or Lactation Support, their standard doctor’s appointments, and those late-night questions that pop up about health concerns. We want to be there for them with videos, guides, expert advice, and support 24/7.
What advice can you offer companies in Los Angeles that do not have a fresh injection of capital in the bank?
Get to know the incredible LA startup ecosystem and explore your resources! Grid110 was a powerful incubator program for us in the very early days, and provides incredible resources to grow your business and seek capital, if that’s what you need. If you’re in healthcare, get to know the events and programming at BioscienceLA. This community really does thrive on new ideas and thoughtful new minds.
Where do you see the company going now over the near term?
The comprehensive care hub we’re currently developing is where we envision Ruth Health’s future and ongoing evolution taking root. It will feature educational resources, screening tools, videos, and exercises on demand — all of which allow us to be there and support our patients, even when they’re not in services. We’re building a wraparound set of services and a community that supplements the doctor.
What’s your favorite outdoor activity in LA?
A day at Griffith Park and a trip to the Observatory to see the stars at night.
