Heal co-founders launch another health-tech startup — HeyRenee
On Aug 5, 2021, LABIZ reported- Five months have passed since Nick Desai left Heal Inc., the health-tech startup he co-founded with his wife, Dr. Renee Dua, where he was CEO.
Already the pair has a new idea with $3.8 million in seed funding led by Quiet Capital.
The idea is HeyRenee, a personal health concierge designed to consolidate, coordinate, communicate and connect all aspects of medical care, especially for those managing chronic illnesses and conditions. The platform aims to launch early next year.
Like Heal, developed after Desai and Dua spent a long night in the emergency room waiting for treatment for their infant son, HeyRenee was inspired by personal experience.
This time, it was Dua’s father who motivated them. What should have been a relatively routine back surgery “turned into a complicated mess” and resulted in a long hospital stay, Desai said. And when he got home, his recovery required coordination of physical therapy and medications.
“He would call Renee and say, ‘Hey Renee, what do I do about this? Hey Renee, what do I do about that?’” Desai told me.
Thus, the company name. “Everyone needs a Renee in their life, but not everyone's wife or daughter is a loving, caring doctor, so we want to create that in technology.”
For example, say you’re a 72-year-old patient with Type 2 diabetes and underlying obesity, hypertension, and untreated depression and anxiety.
“There's 100 million Americans with two-plus chronic diseases,” Desai said. “That's not uncommon.”
Your doctor prescribes Benazepril for your high blood pressure, asks you to measure your blood sugar three times a day, and see a therapist for your mental health, among other things.
HeyRenee can help the patient execute all that by delivering your medication, reminding you to take it, finding a therapist (perhaps via telemedicine), and tracking your vitals so your doctor knows whether your treatment plan is working.
Desai likens the doctor’s care plan to a blueprint that HeyRenee uses to build a house, or a recipe that HeyRenee uses to bake a cake.
HeyRenee is an app, but it will also operate by voice through Amazon's Alexa and text for patients who might not be tech savvy.
The customers for HeyRenee, though, would be risk-bearing entities such as health insurance companies, value-based care providers (such as Heal), hospital systems, and managed care plans — “anyone that owns a risk on the patient [and] has the incentive to make sure the patient” seeks treatment, takes medication, tracks vitals, etc.
HeyRenee will employ a “per-member, per-month-type fee structure,” Desaid said. “For the patient end users, it's always a free service.”
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Next chapter
The introduction of HeyRenee follows Desai and Dua’s departure from Heal, which has delivered 250,000 doctor house calls since its launch in 2015 and last year experienced a 540% increase in demand during the pandemic.
Under Desai’s leadership, the company expanded its operations to California, New York, New Jersey, Georgia, Virginia, Washington state, Maryland, Washington, D.C.; Illinois, Louisiana, North Carolina and South Carolina, with services available to 134 million Americans.
Heal also raised more than $200 million, including a $100 million investment from health insurance company Humana Inc.
Still, there are things that Desai plans to do differently this time around, including bringing on institutional investors at the outset rather than individuals.
In addition to Quiet Capital, participating investors in HeyRenee’s oversubscribed seed round include Mucker Capital, Fika Ventures, Tau Ventures, Global Founders Capital and SaaS Venture Capital.
“We raised in one chunk the amount of money that allows us to really accomplish meaningful milestones, as opposed to … sort of always raising money” through individual investors, Desai said.
Venture capital firms also provide insight and help attract talent, “and they can be patient with an approach that is driven by not the sizzle factor but the steak itself,” Desai said.
Desai also said his challenge this time around will be, “Don't boil the ocean. A simple product that works really well for version 1.0 is better than a complex product that does a lot of things OK. That's hard for me because I'm innovative and inventive person and I want it all.”
For now, he said, HeyRenee aims to be “the digital best friend that helps you. Healthcare is hard — we want to make it easy for everybody.”
