Lark Health Raises $100 Million Series D Funding Round Led by Deerfield Management

Funding Will Support Further Research and Development for Lark's AI Chronic Disease Management Platform and Help Expand Virtual Care Integrations

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Lark Health

Oct 13, 2021, 09:00 ET

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif., Oct. 13, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Lark Health today announced that it has closed a $100 million Series D funding round led by Deerfield Management Company. The funding round also includes crossover fund PFM Health Sciences, as well as returning investors Franklin Templeton, King River Capital, Castlepeak, IPD, Olive Tree Capital, and Marvell Technology cofounder Weili Dai.

"Empowering consumers to better manage their health and mitigate the impact of chronic conditions is one of the greatest challenges in healthcare, and approaches to the problem so far have resulted in fragmented care that frustrates consumers, payers, and providers alike. Lark has created a powerful AI-based platform that enables scalable personalized counseling and patient engagement that integrates and coordinates within the ecosystem to drive improved outcomes in a cost-effective way," said Dr. Julian Harris, a partner at Deerfield and an executive with extensive public and private payer experience. "We are excited to work with Lark Health to expand their reach and ensure more people across the country have access to personalized, compassionate virtual care."

Lark plans to use the funds to expand its virtual care integrations to more payers. With Lark's powerful AI-driven platform and highly personalized approach, health plans and employers are able to better engage their members, give them the support they need to adhere to their care plans, and help alleviate the daily burden of chronic conditions management on care care teams and clinicians. Lark will also use the funding to further invest in research and development to continue advancing its innovative data science and conversational AI that power its platform.

"Since the beginning of the pandemic, there is more demand for virtual care than ever before, leaving health plans and providers with an urgent need to deliver seamless virtual care experiences. This funding is an incredible validation of Lark's approach of leveraging conversational AI and data science to help payers transform how they deliver care digitally, whether they need to quickly stand up a virtual primary care experience or close care gaps for people living with chronic conditions," said Julia Hu, co-founder and CEO of Lark.

The funding comes during a year of momentum for Lark Health. The company has recently added five members to its leadership team and published a study in Frontiers of Digital Health examining the engagement of adults 65 years and older with a digital health platform. This progress builds on the company's announcement late last year of an expanded relationship with Anthem-affiliated health plans to power digital coaching through the health plans' mobile app and to become the Preferred Provider for its Diabetes Prevention Program.

Through its innovative use of conversational AI and data, Lark is able to scale personalized care at a significantly lower cost than other chronic conditions management services, which rely entirely on telephonic or in-person resources for coaching interaction. Lark is a covered benefit for over 30 million lives, and has raised a total of $185 million in equity and debt funding to date.

About Lark Health
Lark is a healthcare technology company aimed at delivering infinitely scalable, virtual chronic and preventative healthcare through conversational AI. To date, Lark has provided nearly 2 million people with unlimited, 24/7 personalized care delivered through an easy-to-use, text message-like interface that integrates remote patient monitoring tools and is built on a cognitive behavioral therapy framework. Lark's platform seamlessly integrates with health plans' and employers' existing healthcare infrastructure to help them scale their chronic disease prevention and management programs, boost engagement, and improve health outcomes. Lark currently works with many of the largest health plans and across four programs: Prevention, Diabetes Prevention, Diabetes Care, and Hypertension Care. Lark's Diabetes Prevention Program, which is the fastest growing and lowest cost DPP, has received the highest level of clinical recognition—Full Recognition—from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The company has received numerous accolades, including having been named as one of CB Insights Digital Health 150 (2019), a finalist for the UCSF Digital Health Awards (2020), one of Fast Company's Most Innovative Companies (multiple years), and one of Fierce Healthcare's Fierce 15 (2020). To learn more, visit www.lark.com.

Press Contact:
Dori Zweig
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SOURCE Lark Health