Why We Invested In AmplifyMD -- Virtual Specialist Healthcare

AmplifyMD is a platform for all specialty needs: it connects. Excited to be investors alongside F Prime (Fidelity), Greylock and Forerunner – it has been a total of $23M in funding since starting in 2018. The team impressed us with (1) Strong executing team (2) first hires show good strategy focusing on sales and customer management (3) clear healthcare access implications and pathway to cross-state physician consults.

1) The Need

Unequal access to healthcare is a widespread problem in the United States, especially in rural communities that lack large hospital systems to support specialized medical care. Telehealth has become a rising trend in delivering patient care and returning access to regions that lack medical resource support, with a total addressable market of $33B. Disease burden of cardiovascular disease and stroke varies from state to state, and while a study by Bristol Myers Squibb found that 49% of Americans have at least one major heart disease risk factor, the top 10 states with highest incidence include Michigan and Louisiana, most concentrated in pockets of rural areas. In addition to unequal patient outcomes, the inequity for access to specialized care has significant financial costs, where research models show that removing care inequities due to just one of inequity driving factors, racial disparities, would save $2.3 billion in direct care costs. The implications of solving gaps in healthcare within access is imperative both financially and for improving patient outcome.

2) The Team

CEO Meena Mallipeddi has had experience in the consulting field and transitioned to private investment in the technology and healthcare industries prior to starting AmplifyMD. Her background is in International Relations and CS, and she was also a Gates scholar. CPO and cofounder Anand Nathan’s past experiences include consulting at Bain, investing in KKR, corporate strategy at Engineering Systems Solution and Linkedin. His background is in economics and electrical and biomedical engineering. CTO Nijay Patel had 11+ years total at Epic and Redox, which focuses on EHR interoperability. HIs background is in biophysics with a focus on computational biology.

3) The Product

AmplifyMD’S platform seeks to connect patients in hospital systems to specialists in order to continue their care. The platform solves the issue of lack of access to healthcare in many rural areas by creating networks of specialized to primary care physicians in order to service the needs of a variety of patients ranging from chronic disease patients to infectious diseases. Their list of expanding specialities serviced include, but are not limited to cardiology, neurology, psychiatry, nephrology, and oncology. With a diverse patient population across their partner facilities, from rural communities, tertiary care centers and critical care hospitals, they are dedicated to delivering platform for video consults in order to drive outcomes such as higher CMI and lower 30-day readmission rates, providing a win win for hospitals, providers, and patients. We believe that AmplifyMD is positioned well in the telehealth market, as well as its potential to aggregate data from usually siloed centers, to leverage its platform in increasing access for millions of patients in the US.??

We are honored and excited to be part of AmplifyMD’s journey, leveraging technology to thoughtfully fill in the gaps of healthcare. More at https://amplifymd.com/ .

Thanks to Sharon Huang for helping with this article. Originally published on “Data Driven Investor ," am happy to syndicate on other platforms. I am the Managing Partner and Cofounder of Tau Ventures with 20 years in Silicon Valley across corporates, own startup, and VC funds. These are purposely short articles focused on practical insights (I call it gl;dr -- good length; did read). Many of my writings are at https://www.dhirubhai.net/in/amgarg/detail/recent-activity/posts and I would be stoked if they get people interested enough in a topic to explore in further depth. If this article had useful insights for you, comment away and/or give a like on the article and on the Tau Ventures’ LinkedIn page , with due thanks for supporting our work. All opinions expressed here are my own.