- Healthcare startup Sharecare is meeting with bankers to explore going public in 2021, a person familiar with the matter told Business Insider.
- Selling itself to another company is also on the table, the person said.
- Sharecare would one of more than a dozen digital health startups to go public in the last two years.
- Visit Business Insider’s homepage for more stories.
Healthcare startup Sharecare is weighing whether to go public next year, Business Insider has learned.
The company is meeting with bankers to discuss several options for a stock market debut, including through the traditional IPO process and a deal with a blank-check company, a person familiar with the plans said.
Being acquired is also on the table, and Sharecare has already prepared “data rooms” for potential investors to vet the company, said the person, who has direct knowledge of the talks and asked not to be named.
“The events of 2020 have accelerated both user adoption of and investment in the virtual health industry,” Jen Martin Hall, a Sharecare spokeswoman, said. “As we look to 2021, we are focused on strategically propelling the growth of Sharecare while advancing the well-being of each of our users and their communities.”
Funding for digital health startups has set record after record over the course of the coronavirus pandemic. So far in 2020, they’ve raised $9.4 billion, which already eclipses the previous record of $8.2 billion in 2018, according to a recent report by Rock Health, a venture and advisory firm.
That’s fueling a fast-track to public markets, as Business Insider’s Megan Hernbroth reported. SPACs, or special purposes acquisition companies, are becoming a popular exit option for startups like Clover Health and Hims. They allow startups to go public essentially through mergers, sparing still-small companies from the regulatory hassle of the traditional IPO process.
Sharecare for its part has raised more than $430 million in funding, well above the average prior to an IPO in digital health. Investors include Oprah Winfrey, Aflac Corporate Ventures, Quest Diagnostics, and Wells Fargo.
In fact, Winfrey had a hand in the company’s start, when she asked Jeff Arnold, who founded WebMD, to create a digital strategy with Dr. Mehmet Oz for “The Dr. Oz Show,” a spokesperson for the company told Business Insider.
The pair launched Sharecare basically in tandem with the show in 2009, with Arnold as CEO and chairman of the board and Oz as an advisor. The goal was to create a hub for health information not unlike WebMD, but segmented by category and conditions like diabetes.
Early on, the company was criticized for providing information generated by marketers like Johnson & Johnson, Dove, and Walgreens, even though it was labeled with affiliations. Q&As are still popular on the site, many of which are answered by physicians or medical centers.
Since its inception in 2009, however, Sharecare’s acquired 16 companies, making its offerings pretty diverse. The company still manages the digital strategy for Dr. Oz and often features clips from the show on Sharecare.com. It also has a division that works with providers to get patients their medical records.
Starting largely with the acquisition of Healthways in 2016, Sharecare did more business directly with employers and health plans. That takes the form of connecting people to digital programs or benefits, like fertility company Ovia Health, through a mobile app. The company makes a few programs in-house, like one that helps folks with diabetes through coaching.
Current customers include Blue Cross Blue Shield of Arizona, the state of Georgia, Samsung, and Delta, according to the company. It also partners with companies like CVS Health’s Caremark to provide deals on medication to users.
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