Thinking Bigger

Thinking Bigger

Maven raises $110m Series D - here is what's next?

Before anyone had heard of COVID-19, before social distancing and masking orders and remote school, before the shuttering of childcare facilities and the caregiving crisis and the mass exodus of mothers from the workforce — before all of that — women’s and family health was already riddled with inequity.?

We saw it in the fact that 50% of U.S. counties were without a single OB-GYN. We saw it in galling racial disparities across fertility, maternity, and pediatric care. We saw it in the lack of financial support for LGBTQ+ family building. And, in the U.S., the richest country in the world, we saw it in the highest maternal mortality rate in the industrialized world.

COVID-19 has only exacerbated these disparities. It has also brought significant momentum to digital health as a critical part of the solution. It now appears certain that a new equilibrium will be established between digital and brick-and-mortar care in the coming years. The choices made during this period by employers, payers, and other leaders will reverberate for decades to come, affecting health outcomes, employee productivity, and total cost of care.?

These choices will also directly affect underserved patient communities. I think of the new parent navigating return-to-work; the working professional finding themselves, for the first time, in an exhausting caregiving role; the same-sex couple seeking adoption support; the woman suffering invisibly from miscarriage after yet another round of IVF; the Black mother-to-be who knows all too well the biases that make the current system less responsive to her needs. For all of these patients, and countless others, digital health offers a way to be seen, heard, and supported.?

Yet for all the potential of the current moment, finding a new equilibrium between digital and in-person care will be hard. It’s not enough to simply demand more from the current system. You have to know what to demand and how. You have to move beyond incrementalism and envision something that’s really different. The challenge of the current moment, frankly, is thinking bigger.

Maven: The only unicorn in women’s & family health

I have been asked many times how my personal experience informed Maven. My answer is that, from the beginning, Maven’s North Star has been a relentless focus on the needs of the patient. Maven is infinitely larger than me and my own experience — but also — and this is unfortunately rare among founders in our space — I am a mother, and I am a patient.?

Like so many others, my parenthood journey began with a miscarriage, an experience that left me feeling lost, discouraged, and confused why something so painful and physically taxing was considered outside the bounds of traditional healthcare. Today, I feel fortunate to be the mother of three children, particularly as each pregnancy presented its own unique challenges. I’ve had a newborn spend nights in the NICU. I’ve had a tough recovery from a C-section. These experiences make me our product’s biggest critic. Will Maven actually ensure that women and families have the support they need on a truly wide range of issues, when they need it most? Even in the middle of the night??

This unwavering focus on the needs of the patient led us, at Maven, to build a care model that is capable of adapting to the needs of those we serve, connecting our members to care advocates, to specialized telehealth, and to resources meeting an array of family needs — from preconception, fertility, and adoption, to pregnancy, postpartum, and return-to-work, to parenting, pediatrics, and family care. We chose this approach because it was the only way to connect all the dots in the family-building experience, and the only way to support the family in all its diversity.?

With this in mind, Maven built the largest and most diverse network of practitioners in our category, representing more than 30 specialties and 350 subspecialties across women’s and family health, to ensure we could meet our patients’ needs, any time, anywhere. Whether a member needs an egg donor consultant, maternal mental health provider, genetic counselor or a lactation consultant, Maven supports them. Our practitioners look like the patients we serve, with 40% identifying as BIPOC, and speak more than 30 languages. The breadth, depth, and diversity of our practitioner network means we can ensure our members benefit from technical expertise as well as care from those who share their lived experience. We also see our telemedicine as a critical complement to, not a replacement for, the heroes on the front-lines of women’s and family health. If the pandemic has shown one thing, it is just how well these two modes of care can support one another.?

Maven has also built the largest team of care advocates in our category — because it was the only way to ensure a 24/7, seamless, and compassionate experience, connecting members not only across our practitioners, but also across the array of benefits offered by our partners, whether an employer or health plan. We chose this approach because it was right for our patients, and also right for our clients — the only way to drive the genuine, durable impact they seek, with around-the-clock coordination, and connectivity back into the brick-and-mortar healthcare system.?

Today, we take the next step in our journey. I am proud to announce Maven’s $110 million Series D financing, co-led by Dragoneer and Lux, with participation from BOND, as well as returning investors including Sequoia Capital, Oak HC/FT, and Icon Ventures. This is the largest-ever for a company in our space, and makes Maven the only unicorn in women’s and family health.?

Maven: For those thinking bigger

More than anything, this fundraise allows us to continue our relentless focus on the patient. Our plan is to be front and center in shaping the new equilibrium between digital and in-person care, and to make starting and raising a family better for us all.?

With the capital raised in our Series D, we will double down on our patient-first approach to offer an even more personal experience to each and every member, no matter where they live in the world, while continuing to deliver the outcomes that have established Maven as the clear leader in our space. We will also expand to serve new populations with significant need, including Medicaid, which is responsible for paying for nearly half of all U.S. births. Around the world, care deserts plague much of healthcare, but in this space, unequal access and a dearth of specialists is especially glaring and devastating. Lack of access to prenatal care makes pregnant women up to four times more likely to die in a pregnancy-related death, and contributes to higher rates of infant mortality as well.?

These are the opportunities that Maven was built to address, alongside partner organizations who are willing to think bigger. From the beginning, we have seen our work as creating step-change solutions in a sea of band-aids and passive gestures. We have proven ourselves as trustworthy, showing up when people need us, with far more than anyone else can, to provide excellent care and to affirm their dignity by truly seeing and listening to them.

Going forward, Maven will continue to be the solution for everyone thinking bigger about women’s and family health. For everyone going beyond box-ticking to reimagine a better way of delivering care and support. For everyone wanting to make the end-to-end experience of starting and raising a family as delightful as it should be. For all of you, Maven is here — because women and families simply cannot wait.?