Online pharmacy Ro raises $500 million
New York-based telehealth startup Ro has raised $500 million in a Series D fundraising round led by existing investors General Catalyst, FirstMark Capital and TQ Ventures, with significant participation from existing investors SignalFire, Torch Capital and BoxGroup as well as new investors Altimeter Capital, Baupost Group, Dragoneer Investment Group, ShawSpring Partners, Radcliff, and 776. Since its inception in 2017, the company has raised $876 million.
Ro (a team of ~445) builds technology to power three digital health clinics – Roman for men’s health, Rory for women’s health, and Zero for fighting smoking cessation – as well as Ro Pharmacy, an online pharmacy where every generic medication is $5 per month. The company recently acquired Workpath, a software platform that enables healthcare companies to offer on-demand, in-home care and diagnostic services with a simple API. The acquisition has allowed Ro to integrate virtual and in-person care on its own platform and offer these in-home capabilities to other healthcare companies.
In addition to in-home care, Ro’s vertically integrated primary care platform allows for the immediate nationwide distribution of new treatments and medical devices. Ro recently partnered with healthcare AI company Gauss to offer Gauss’s smartphone-powered, at-home COVID-19 rapid antigen tests on Ro’s platform upon Food and Drug Administration Emergency Use Authorization. Ro has also partnered with biotechnology company Gelesis to make Gelesis’s weight management treatment Plenity available to patients nationwide utilizing Ro’s nationwide network of affiliated healthcare practitioners and pharmacy distribution centers.
“The current healthcare system is working beautifully for insurance companies, but terribly for patients; to pretend otherwise is absolutely ridiculous. It’s time to give patients power. Ro is the only company to combine a nationwide telemedicine, pharmacy distribution, and in-home care network. Through this vertically integrated platform we’re making high-quality care available when and where patients need it, with no insurance required so patients are the ones in control. We’re powering a patient revolution, and we’re just getting started.” – Zachariah Reitano, Co-Founder & CEO of Ro.
“What Zach and his team have been able to build in less than four years is nothing short of amazing. That this company was started from a place of personal challenge has guided the team to truly rethink healthcare experiences through a patient-centric lens. The team has continuously upleveled their thinking along the way and, as a result, they’ve got the potential to create an outsized positive impact on how we all access healthcare both via the internet and at home.” – Hemant Taneja, managing partner at General Catalyst, co-founder of Livongo, and a Ro investor.
