Salvo Health Secures $10.5 Million in Seed Funding To Scale Virtual Health Clinic for Chronic Conditions
The virtual health clinic has launched to serve 60M+ Americans suffering from GI issues
Salvo Health (https://www.salvohealth.com/), the virtual health clinic focusing on specialty care for chronic gut conditions, today announced the close of a $10.5 million seed funding investment led by Threshold Ventures along with Torch Capital and Felicis. These investors were early backers of healthcare innovators such as Livongo, Ro, and Brightline. Additional seed investors include founders from health transformers such as Ginger and Forward Health.
Salvo Health is the first digital healthcare clinic delivering comprehensive and continuous gastro care. Members have unlimited messaging access to a care team, including a dedicated doctor, health coach, and care navigator, who offer care plans designed by leading experts in the GI field.
Salvo Health is founded by veteran tech entrepreneurs who have helped digitize offline industries: Jeff Glueck, former CEO of Foursquare; Avi Dorfman, part of the founding team of Compass; and Jason Finger, co-founder of Seamless/Grubhub.
"There is no quick-fix cure-all for chronic conditions like IBS or GERD, but with the right treatment approach from an expert team, and equipping our members with diverse strategies and tools, we can help people restore balance to their lives," said Jeff Glueck, Founder & CEO of Salvo Health. "The conventional medical system often underserves chronic GI conditions, so we assembled top minds to provide comprehensive and accessible care through an easy-to-use, app-based approach."
Salvo Health's trademarked model of care, Whole Self Science, focuses on understanding how the entire body and lifestyle may impact overall gut health, allowing the care team to provide personalized and ongoing care to address root causes.
For the first time, Salvo Health has brought together leaders from fields such as nutrition, psychology, gastroenterology, and microbiome science to guide a more comprehensive care model. Salvo Health's Clinical Advisory Board includes leading physicians from respected institutions such as the Cleveland Clinic's Center for Functional Medicine, Cedars-Sinai, and UCLA.
The Clinical Advisory Board includes:
- Dr. Mark Hyman, Senior Advisor of the Cleveland Clinic Center for Functional Medicine;
- Dr. Mark Pimentel, Professor of Medicine at Cedars-Sinai and Executive Director of the MAST Program;
- Dr. Emeran Mayer, founding Director of the UCLA Brain-Gut Microbiome Center;
- Dr. Megan Oser, Clinical psychologist, expert in behavioral medicine and Director of Behavioral Medicine for Digestive Health at UCLA;
- Dr. Frank Lipman, founder of the Eleven Eleven Wellness Center;
- Chris Kresser M.S., L.Ac, founder of the Kresser Institute and a leading author and Functional Medicine clinician;
- Dr. Laura Reigada, Ph.D., licensed clinical health psychologist on faculty at CUNY, and Co-Chair of the Rome Foundation's GastroPsych Membership Committee
"There are only 15,400 board-certified gastroenterologists in the U.S. but over 60 million people live with chronic gut conditions. We need to forge new, affordable, and effective ways to provide ongoing care," said Emily Melton, Founder and Managing Partner at Threshold. "With Salvo Health, treatment is made accessible by bundling a program with specialist doctors, health coaches, programs from registered dieticians and psychologists into one monthly payment, a care plan that would typically cost hundreds to thousands of dollars a month out-of-pocket."
"We love that Salvo Health's unique care model puts patients first, focusing on treating root causes rather than symptoms (which is how the existing healthcare system has historically treated gut issues),'' said Jonathan Keidan, Founder and Managing Partner of Torch Capital. "A platform like Salvo's is critical in changing health outcomes for these patients. Using their technology, they are able to drastically expand the population of patients who have access to this best-in-class care. We're thrilled to be investors as we know the huge impact they can have on the population who suffers these health conditions."
Members can use their HSA/FSA funds to access a board-certified doctor, a board-certified health coach, and a custom treatment plan. Evidence-based care plans include brain-gut exercises designed by psychologists, gut-friendly nutrition recommendations from registered dieticians, microbiome health approaches, and sleep and stress practices. Doctors can help members access, as medically indicated, prescriptions and diagnostic testing as add-ons that generally are covered by health insurance. Support for members is available seven days a week.
The company will use the seed funding to invest in its technology, expand to dozens more states, and build awareness via marketing. The virtual health clinic will also dedicate funding toward its research team studying user experiences and outcomes, which will contribute to medical studies on complex conditions and improvements to overall healthcare.
Salvo Health is currently available in Calif., Fla., Ill., Mich., Ohio, N.J., N.Y., Pa., Texas, Tenn., Conn., Ky. and Va., with plans to expand to all 50 states. For more information and to sign up for a membership, please visit salvohealth.com.
About Salvo Health
Salvo Health is the virtual health clinic for chronic conditions. Salvo Health aims to radically increase access to the best of advanced specialty care, starting with the 60 million Americans impacted by chronic gut-related illnesses. Salvo Health uses a trademarked model of care called Whole Self Science, that considers overall health and contributing factors beyond the gut, to identify the root causes and provide personalized and continuous treatment plans. Members receive programs designed by world-renowned experts all through a mobile app. For more information please visit www.SalvoHealth.com.
About Threshold Ventures
Threshold Ventures is an early stage venture capital firm helping founders in healthcare and enterprise software bring their ideas to market. Our investments include BetterUp, Brightline, Doximity (NYSE:DOCS), LaunchDarkly, Livongo (NASDAQ:LVGO), Remitly (NASDAQ:RELY), Rippling, Talkdesk, and Viz.ai. Based on our work with these and dozens of other startups, we purpose-built Threshold so we can be the most effective partner for entrepreneurs at the early stages of building their companies. Learn more at www.threshold.vc.
About Torch Capital
Torch Capital is a New York-based, $200M early-stage venture capital firm that invests in the next generation of tech-enabled consumer brands and the infrastructure platforms that power them. Torch invests in customer-obsessed founders who use technology to make products and services more accessible, transparent, and affordable, whether the end-user is a person or business. Since launching in 2018, Torch has established itself as one of the top performing early-stage consumer technology funds in NYC. Torch Fund I investments include Ro, Acorns, Tia, Rho Banking, and Naadam, leaving the Fund's performance in the top decile of 2018 vintages. For more information visit: www.torchcapital.vc
About Felicis
Founded in 2006, Felicis is a venture capital firm investing in companies reinventing core markets, as well as those creating frontier technologies. Felicis focuses on early stage investments and currently manages over $2.1B in capital across 8 funds. The firm is an early backer of more than 45 companies valued at $1B+. More than 95 of its portfolio companies have been acquired or gone public, including Adyen (IPO), Credit Karma (acq by Intuit), Cruise (acq by General Motors), Fitbit (IPO), Guardant Health (IPO), Meraki (acq by Cisco), Ring (acq by Amazon), and Shopify (IPO). The firm is based in Menlo Park, CA. Learn more at www.felicis.com.
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