Company raises seed capital for affordable housing based healthcare model
LOS ANGELES: A company has raised a motza to seed the development of a new affordable housing based healthcare model.
Why it matters: Washington, D.C.-based Ounce is using housing as a toehold into the care ecosystem, eyeing the tens of millions of people losing Medicaid coverage as the public health emergency ends.
Details: Meridian Street Capital and Flare Capital co-led the round.
– Chelsea Clinton’s Metrodora Ventures, Wilshire Lane Capital, Hilton CEO Chris Nassetta, and Unite Us co-founder Taylor Justice participated.
– Funds will go toward internal growth and planning for expansions throughout D.C. and other cities and states.
– Munsie declined to say when Ounce plans to raise a Series A.
How it works: The startup embeds its team of community health workers inside affordable rental properties, utilizing extra leasing office spaces, community rooms, and lobby offices.
– Those workers have access to tools and tech enabling them to develop one-on-one relationships with residents, host on-site health screenings and pop-up clinics, enroll residents in public benefits like SNAP, Medicaid, and disability, schedule primary care and pediatric appointments, and help residents apply for rental and utility assistance.
– Ounce currently serves roughly 2,000 affordable housing residents across nine properties in D.C., per Munsie.
Zoom in: In an effort to foster trust, Ounce includes as criteria in its hiring process whether candidates have lived in the neighborhoods they seek to serve.
– “When you’re working with a lack of trust in the traditional health care system to begin with, overcoming that takes some level of community knowledge and frankly, just familiarity you can’t train for,” Munsie says.
– Be smart: Medicaid serves nearly one in five U.S. residents and represents $671 billion in yearly spending, per the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid.
Plus, Medicaid enrollees have adopted virtual care tools at rates similar to those on commercial insurance, a recent Rock Health report found.
State of play: A small but growing cohort of health care startups is building for the Medicaid market, including:
– Galileo, a NYC-based virtual care company focused on Medicaid members, last November raised $18 million in Series A financing.
– Cityblock Health, a NYC-based hybrid primary care company focused on Medicaid patients, in 2021 raised $400 million in Series D funding at a $5.7 billion valuation.
What they’re saying: Compared with care providers like Galileo or Cityblock, Munsie says Ounce sees itself more as a community-based coordinator than a “full stack clinical care” startup.