Angle Health’s $58 million Series A round will bring the tech-enabled insurer to profitability, CEO Ty Wang told Axios.
Why it matters: Unit economics—like a path to breakeven—is becoming increasingly important to early-stage healthtech companies and their investors.
How it works: Angle is a full-stack health insurance company that provides tailored healthcare benefits to small and medium-sized businesses.
- In addition to offering benefits, the company offers Care Navigator to help members access behavioral health, telehealth and disease management services.
- The firm’s clients include NFP, Gallagher, GBS/Leavitt, Aon and Hub.
- Angle has partnered with Cigna to give its members access to a national network of healthcare providers, Wang said.
detail: Angle generated “tens of millions” of revenue, Wang said, but declined to give details.
- The round was led by Portage, with participation from PruVen Capital, Wing Venture Capital, SixThirty Ventures, Mighty Capital, Wormhole Capital, Mindset Ventures, Aloft VC and Pilot founder Waseem Daher.
- Wang told Axios that the Series A round will be raised in two tranches. Angle raised $21 million in equity and $10 million in debt over the summer, before Portage came in to lead another $27 million infusion, he said.
- Existing investors Blumberg Capital, Correlation Ventures, TSVC and Y Combinator participated.
Precautions: Publicly traded “insurtechs” such as Oscar Health, Bright Health Group, and Clover Health — most of which operate in the direct-to-consumer health insurance market and thus do not compete directly with Angle — have cut market share to turn a profit .
What are they saying: Angle’s customization sets it apart from other market players, Wang said.
- Small and medium-sized businesses “are often limited to ‘off-the-shelf’ plans, which can confuse their staff and disrupt existing healthcare services,” Wang said.
- “We can customize these health plan packages for employers based on their needs,” he said, noting that 80 percent of Angle’s health plans are tailor-made.
Between the lines: Portage has a long history of investing in the insurance industry, but Angle is its first investment in North American healthcare.
- Ricky Lai, Partner at Portage, said: “Our LP base includes many insurance companies with strong relationship networks in the healthcare and health insurance sectors.”
conspiracy: Angle sees itself as a provider of ultimate care, like its larger payer peers (cough, Optum), Wang said.
- “We mainly provide connectivity and coordination around these benefits, both administratively and clinically,” Wang said. “It’s definitely an opportunity and a potential opportunity for us to be providers ourselves and deliver the actual medical care.”
Game status: In addition to the major commercial insurers, independent third-party administrators such as Collective Health and Flume also serve the employer benefits market.
- Last year, Flume Health raised a $30 million Series A at a $100 million valuation, while Collective Health raised a $280 million Series F in 2021 at a $1.5 billion valuation.
- TPAs like this typically serve large companies (500 to 1,000+ employees) that have the resources to design and deliver custom health plans in-house, Wang said, and none of them take on the full risk.
- “Even with third-party managed services, there are some start-up health plans that can do this, but they don’t cover or take the risk,” Angle co-founder Anirban Gangopadhyay said.
