NASA will provide 1,000 of its employees, including 150 astronauts, with Fitbit devices in a pilot program designed to see if they can help supplement efforts to keep these mission-critical personnel healthy ahead of key space missions. The program will see NASA employees outfitted with a wearable, and provided access to a daily check-in app they can use to log potential symptoms, as well as their body temperature and other key health metrics, which could potentially help spot developing cases.

NASA has already been taking measures to isolate astronauts and to limit or prevent the spread of COVID-19 across its facilities, which are located across the U.S. It has of course followed local guidelines and requirements regarding COVID-19 protections, but it also introduced its own level-based system last year and implemented remote work protocols for many employees wherever possible. On the astronaut side, it has also beefed up existing isolation and sequestration procedures that are already quite strict in order to guarantee that its spacefarers don’t get sick before they’re set to make a trip to the International Space Station.

The new Fitbit program is designed to supplement those existing measure, providing tracked health metrics including resting heart rate and heart rate variability, as well as respiratory rate, changes in all of which all of which have been linked to COVID-19. Those stats, along with the self-reported metrics logged by users themselves, including any reports of potential symptoms, will be used by the app to provide individuals in the program with guidance about whether they should go into work, or stay home and take additional measures to find out if they have COVID-19.

Fitbit is already engaged in studies to determine whether or not its wearable devices and the metrics they log can be useful in providing early COVID-19 detection. Regardless of those results, self-reporting as well as the baseline health metrics that the app logs from its devices are already likely to be handy in providing a supplement to existing self-assessment measures regarding the level of risk you pose to others if you’re feeling off, which is the primary purpose of this program with NASA.

Last night, MetroMile and SPAC INSU Acquisition Corp. II completed their combination, putting the per-mile auto insurance startup up for regular trading today for the first time.

In the wake of last year’s debuts by neoinsurance companies Lemonade and Root, it’s not surprising to see others test the public markets. For example, Oscar Health recently announced its intention to go public via a traditional IPO.

How the new entrants will fare, however, is not clear.

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There is something of a tale of two companies in Lemonade and Root, with the pair valued at divergent multiples and sporting very different post-IPO trajectories, at least concerning their value.

While Lemonade has appreciated greatly from its IPO price ($29) to its current value ($155.33), Root’s share price dropped from its debut ($27) to today ($21.75).

This morning, as MetroMile starts its life as a public company, Oscar Health preps its own run at an IPO and other neoinsurance players like Hippo wait in the wings, let’s quickly check the difference between how Root and Lemonade have fared, and then ask what we can learn their different valuation multiples and what they might mean for the next startup insurance players hoping to gov v public while the IPO window is wide open.

Root, Lemonade

Lemonade’s path to the public markets was one that started modestly with its first IPO pricing, improved, and then, after technically going public at a down-round valuation, took off like a rocket. Root’s IPO pricing run involved what we thought of as a strong IPO range and then an above-target pricing.

But since then, Lemonade shares have rallied to several times their original price, while Root has dropped around 20%. Lemonade, for reference, sells rental insurance with an eye on going up-market in time to other forms of home-focused insurance. Root is in the auto insurance market, where MetroMile also works.

Both Lemonade and Root have yet to announce Q4 2020 results, so we’ll look at their Q3 details instead. We want to get a handle for how divergently their insurance incomes are being treated. This should give us a better understanding of how Wall Street values each, then we’ll apply those learnings to our two new companies. What we learn today will hopefully bear on other insurtech startups that want liquidity during the current cycle.

Results via the company, comparisons are Q3 2019:

• Root Q3 2020 revenue: $50.5 million (impaired from $75.8 million)
• Root Q3 2020 gross profit: $0.7 million (improved from -$36 million)
• Root Q3 2020 net loss: $85.2 million (improved from -$100.1 million)
• Premiums in force: $600.1 million
• Valuation: $5.45 billion (Google Finance)

This gives us Root revenue run rate multiple of around 27x, and a premium in force multiple of just over 9x. Now let’s observe Lemonade’s data.

Results via the company, comparisons are Q3 2019:

• Lemonade Q3 2020 revenue: $10.5 million (impaired from $17.8 million)
• Lemonade Q3 2020 gross profit: $7.3 million (improved from $4.0 million)
• Lemonade Q3 2020 net loss: $30.9 million (improved from $31.1 million)
• Premiums in force: $188.9 million
• Valuation: $9.33 billion (Google Finance)

Looking at the same two metrics, Lemonade has a run rate multiple of 222x, and a premium in force multiple of more than 49x.

A new study from Mount Sinai researchers published in the peer-reviewed Journal of Medical Internet Research found that wearable hardware, and specifically the Apple Watch, can effectively predict a positive COVID-19 diagnosis up to a week before current PCR-based nasal swab tests.

The investigation dubbed the ‘Warrior Watch Study,‘ used a dedicated Apple Watch and iPhone app and included participants from Mount Sinai staff. It required participants to use the app for health data monitoring and collection, and also asked that they fill out a day survey to provide direct feedback about their potential COVID-19 symptoms, and other factor including stress.

During the course of the study, the research team enlisted “several hundred health care workers” to participate, and collected data over several months, between April and September. The primary biometric signal that the study’s authors were watching was heart rate variability (HRV), which is a key indicator of strain on a person’s nervous system. This information was combined with information around reported symptoms associated with COVID-19, including fever, aches, dry cough, gastrointestinal issues, loss of taste and smell, among others.

The Warrior Watch Study was not only able to predict infections up to a week before tests provided confirmed diagnoses, but also revealed that participants’ HRV patterns normalized fairly quickly after their diagnosis, returning to normal roughly one to two weeks following their positive tests.

As to what the study could lead to in terms of actual interventions, the study’s authors note that it can help anticipate outcomes and isolate individuals from others who are at risk. Most importantly, it provides a means for doing so remotely, allowing caregivers to anticipate or detect a COVID-19 case without even doing a physical exam or a administering a nasal swab test, which can help take precautionary measures in high-risk situations when cases are suspected, possibly preventing any spread before someone is highly contagious.

The study is ongoing, and will expand to examine what else wearables like the Apple Watch and their onboard sensors can tell us about other impacts of COVID-19 on the health of care workers, including what factors like sleep and physical activity can have in association with the disease.

Based in Bangladesh, Maya is dedicated to making it easier for women to get healthcare, especially for sensitive issues like reproductive and mental health. The startup announced today it has raised $2.2 million in seed funding. The round, which Maya said is the largest raised by a Bangladeshi health tech company so far, was led by early-stage fund Anchorless Bangladesh and The Osiris Group, a private equity firm focused on impact investing in Asian markets.

The funding will be used to introduce new products to Maya’s telehealth platform and expand into more countries. Maya recently launched in Sri Lanka and plans to expand into India, Pakistan, Middle Eastern markets and Indonesia.

Maya uses natural language processing and machine learning technology for its digital assistant, which answers basic health-related questions and decides if users need to be routed to human experts. It has about 10 million unique users and currently counts more than 300 licensed healthcare providers on its platform.

Founder and chief executive officer Ivy Huq Russell, who grew up in Chittagong and Dhaka before moving to the United Kingdom for university, started Maya as a blog with healthcare information in 2011. At the time, Russell worked in finance. She had just given birth to her first child and her mother had recently been diagnosed with breast cancer. Russell told TechCrunch she realized how many challenges there were to seeking medical care in Bangladesh, including financial barriers, a shortage of providers and long travel times to clinics.

She began Maya with the goal of providing trustworthy health information, but quickly realized that the site’s visitors needed more support. Many sent messages through WhatsApp, email or the site’s chat box, including survivors of sexual abuse, rape and domestic violence. After receiving a grant from BRAC, a Bangladeshi non-governmental organization, Maya’s team began developing an app to connect users with medical information and experts.

Maya’s homescreen

“We were very focused on two things,” Russell said. “One is how do we built trust in our community, in their language, because it’s very important that they communicate in the language that they’re comfortable using. At the same time, we realized as soon as we started getting hundreds and hundreds of questions, that we’re not going to be able to scale up if we just have 50 experts on computers typing.”

To support Bengali and regional dialects, Maya spent more than two years focused on developing its natural language processing technology. It collaborated with data scientists and linguists and took part in Google Launchpad’s accelerator program, working on tokenization and training its machine learning algorithms. Now Maya is able to provide automated answers in Bengali to basic questions in 50 topics with about 95% accuracy, Russell said. Out of the four million queries the platform has handled so far, about half were answered by its AI tech.

Many have to do with sexual or reproductive health and the platform has also seen an increase in questions about mental health. These are topics users are often hesitant seeking in-person consultations for.

“Growing up in Bangladesh, we got minimum sexual education. There’s no curriculum at school. Recently in the last one or two years, we’ve also started to see a lot of mental health questions, because I think we’ve made a good drive toward talking about mental health,” said Russell. She added, “it’s quite natural that whatever they couldn’t go and ask a question about very openly in traditional healthcare systems, they come and ask us.”

More consultations are coming from men, too, who now make up about 30% of Maya’s users. Many ask questions about birth control and family planning, or how to support their partners’ medical issues. To protect users’ privacy, consultations are end-to-end encrypted, and experts only see a randomly-generated ID instead of personal information.

In order to understand if someone needs to be routed to a human expert, Maya’s algorithms considers the length, complexity and urgency of queries, based on their tone. For example, if someone types “please, please, please help me,” they automatically get directed to a person. The majority of questions about mental health are also sent to an expert.

Russell said Maya’s approach is to take a holistic approach to physical health and mental wellness, instead of treating them as separate issues.

“People don’t just ask about physical health issues. They also ask things like, ‘I wear a hijab and I want to go for a run, but I feel really awkward,'” said Russell. “It sounds like a very normal question, but it’s actually quite a loaded question, because it’s affecting their mental health on a day-to-day basis.”

One of the company’s goals is to make the app feel accessible, so people feel more comfortable seeking support. “We’ve literally have had sweets delivered to our office when a user has a baby,” Russell said. “These are the personal touches that I think Maya has delivered in terms of dealing with both physical as well as mental health conditions combined together.”

The company is currently working with different monetization models. One is business-to-business sales, positioning Maya as a software-as-a-service platform that employers can offer to workers as a benefit. Garment manufacturing is one of Bangladesh’s biggest export sectors, and many workers are young women, fitting Maya’s typical user profile. The startup has worked with Marks and Spencer, Primark and the Bangladesh Garments Manufacturer and Exporters Association (BGMEA).

Another B2B route is partnering with insurance providers who offer Maya as a benefit. On the direct-to-consumer side, Maya recently launched premium services, including in-app video consultations and prescription delivery. Demand for consultations increased sharply during the COVID-19 pandemic, and it now handles about 300,000 video visits a month. Russell expects many users to continue using telehealth services even after the pandemic subsides.

“They’ve really seen the advantage of just having a doctor right in front of you,” she said. “For people with chronic conditions, it’s easier because they don’t have to go somewhere every week, and the fact they have monitoring and their history gathered is helpful for regular users, too.”

Google is introducing features that will allow users to take vital health measurements using just the camera they already have on their smartphone, expanding health and fitness features typically only available on dedicated wearables to a whole new group of people. Beginning next month, and available initially on Google Pixel phones exclusively (but with plans to offer it for other Android devices in future), users will be able to measure both their heart rate and their respiratory rate using just their device’s camera.

Typically, taking these measurements has required specialized hardware, including red or green light-based heart rate monitors like those found on the Apple Watch or on fitness trackers like those made by Google-acquired Fitbit. Google’s hardware and software teams, including the Google Health unit led by Director of Health Technologies Shwetak Patel, have managed to develop computer vision-based methods for taking these measurements using only smartphone cameras, which it says can produce results that are comparable to clinical-grade measurement hardware (it has produced a study to validate these results, which it’s making available in pre-print format while it seeks peer review through an academic journal).

For respiratory rate, the technology relies on a technique known as ‘optical flow,’ which monitors movements in a person’s chest as they breathe and uses that to determine their breathing rate. In its clinical validation study, which covered both typical individuals in good health, and people with existing respiratory conditions, Google’s data indicates that it’s accurate to within 1 breath per minute across all participants.

For heart rate, Google is initially using the camera to detect “subtle color changes” in a user’s finger tip, which provide an indicator about when oxygenated blood flows from your heart through to the rest of your body. The company’s validation data (again, still subject to external review) has shown accuracy within 2% margin of error, on average, across people with a range of different skin types. Google is also working on making this same technology work using color changes in a person’s face, it says, though that work is still in the exploratory phase.

Google is going to make these measurement features available to users within the next month, it says, via the Google Fit app, and initially on currently available Pixel devices made by the company itself. The plan is then to expand the features to different Android devices running Android 6 or later, sometime “in the coming months.”

Image Credits: Google

“My team has been working on ways that we can unlock the potential of everyday smart devices,” Patel said in a press briefing regarding the new features. This would include smart devices in the home, or a mobile phone, and how we leverage the sensors that are starting to become more and more ubiquitous within those devices, to support health and wellness.”

Patel, who is also a computer science professor at the University of Washington and who has been recognized with an ACM Prize in Computing Award for his work in digital health, said that the availability of powerful sensors in ubiquitous consumer devices, combined with advances in AI, have meant that daily health monitoring can be much more accessible than ever before.

“I really think that’s going to be a really important area moving forward given that if you think about health care, the journey just doesn’t end at the hospital, the four walls of the hospital,” he said. “It’s really this continuous journey, as you’re living your daily life, and being able to give you feedback and be able to measure your general wellness is an important thing.”

It’s worth noting that Google is explicit about these features being intended for use in a person’s own tracking of their general wellbeing – meaning it’s not meant as a diagnostic or medical tool. That’s pretty standard for these kinds of features, since few of these companies want to take of the task of getting full FDA medical-grade device certification for tools that are meant for general consumer use. To that end, Google Fit also doesn’t provide any guidance or advise based on the results of these measurements; instead, the app provides a general disclaimer that the results aren’t intended for medical use, and also offers up some very high-level description of why you’d even want to track these stats at all.

Many of the existing dedicated wellness and health tracking products on the market, like the Oura ring, for instance, provide more guidance and actionable insight based on the measurements it takes. Google seems intent on steering well clear of that line with these features, instead leaving the use of this information fully within the hands of users. That said, it could be a valuable resource to share with your physician, particularly if you’re concerned about potential health issues already, in place of other less convenient and available continuous health monitoring.

Patel said that Google is interested in potentially exploring how sensor fusion could further enhance tracking capabilities on existing devices, and in response to a question about potentially offering this on iPhones, he said that while the focus is currently on Android, they ultimate goal is indeed to get it “to as many people as possible.”

Genetics testing and genome research company 23andMe is set to go public via a merger with special purpose acquisition corp (SPAC) VG Acquisition Corp, a vehicle set up by Richard Branson and his company Virgin Group. The transaction is expected to result in 23andMe having around $984 million in cash available at close to spend on product development, hires and other growth strategies, and will value the company at around $3.5 billion, close to the total cited by an earlier report detailing the talks leading up to this deal.

23andMe, founded in 2006 and led by co-founder Anne Wojcicki, has raised a total of just under $900 million to date, including an $85 million Series F round announced last December. The company was one of the first to debut at-home genetic testing for individual consumers, providing kits that people can use to find out more about their own DNA, and what it says about their potential health issue, ancestry and more.

More recently, the company has turned its massive genomic data store into an opt-in genetic research resource that is used for discovery of future therapies and treatments. It also monetizes through aggregated, anonymized sharing of the data it collects with third-parties, for research and business purposes.

The deal will include $25 million each invested into the private investment in public equity (PIPE) transaction that accompanies the merger from Wojcicki and from Richard Bransons. It’s expected to close in the second quarter of this year, and the resulting company will be listed on the NYSE under the ticker “ME.”

The current SPAC craze has proved a path to an exit for a number of startups, and long-private companies like 23andMe that technically still fit our definition because of the lack of an exit event, but that have also seemed content to rely on private investors to supply their cash reserves for a long time.

Poland-based Telemedico has closed a €5.5 million (~$6.6M) Series A round of funding. The round is led by Flashpoint Venture Capital, Uniqa Ventures, PKO VC, Black Pearls VC (an existing investor) and Adamed.

Telehealth services specifically, and digital health more broadly, have racked up plenty of growth during the pandemic as demand for remote consultations (and other types of support) has accelerated sectoral uplift.

Telemedico, which was founded back in 2014 — but only launched its current b2b model (which is primarily targeted at insurance firms) in 2017 — says 2020 was a record year for its business.

One million consultations were carried out via its platform during the 12-month period, it told us.

Pawel Sieczkiewicz, founder and CEO at Telemedico, says it’s fielding over 100,000 consultations per month at this stage — and is projecting that to increase to 250,000 by the end of 2021.

The platform has been used by more than 900,000 patients to date. While more than 600 doctors currently provide remote consultations for Telemedico.

Services its platform offers include consultations with a doctor via chat, video, telephone; AI-triaging and coordination; and booking of in-person visits and blood testing.

The business has been growing 3x YoY since 2018, per Sieczkiewicz, who says it has carried out more than 2.5 million appointments in total to-date, spanning 10 languages.

It’s expecting to double the size of its (60-strong) team this year, he adds.

The Series A funding will be put towards international expansion — including eyeing potential growth opportunities in LatAm.

Expanding supported languages is part of that plan. (Currently it supports consultations in English, Spanish, Polish, Czech, Russian, Ukrainian, Serbian, Portuguese, Turkish, Arabic; languages it’ll be adding next are: Italian, French, Greek, German, and Romanian.)

Telemedico’s best markets to date are Poland and Spain, per Sieczkiewicz, who says it’s active in 14 markets in total.

“We aim to increase our presence on the markets where we are already active: Spain, Russia, Portugal, Turkey, and launch on new markets, with new languages — mainly EU Countries, like France, Germany, Greece, Italy, and Romania,” he adds.

While there’s a lot of activity in the telehealth space, Telemedico bills itself as one of the only ‘plug and play’ platforms for insurance companies — offering a whitelabel service geared towards a sector that Sieczkiewicz argues may not want to relinquish so much control to brasher, brand-building ‘digital first’ competitors.

“We provide our enterprise customers with a platform they can customise to meet their needs and a network of over 600 doctors who speak 10 languages that they can mix with their own network,” he tells TechCrunch. “We help our customers strengthen their value chain, so they can stand up against digital-first insurance companies who have been emerging for the last couple of years.

“The top three competitors are Babylon Health, KRY, and Pushdoctor. They represent a B2C approach, with a strong local presence. They are also building strong brand awareness around the service, and force insurance companies to let their customers leave their ecosystem. From the feedback that we receive from insurance companies, this isn’t their favourite way of organizing the patient flow.”

“One major drawback for insurers using the Babylon-style setup is that in the future, Babylon might be able to begin offering insurance cover directly to consumers, cutting out the original insurance companies themselves — similar to how digital-first insurance companies like Oscar Health operate,” he adds.

Telemedico says its system can be deployed within around 48 hours — letting insurance firms and other enterprise customers offer a telehealth platform that gives their users access to web and mobile white-label patient portals; online consultations; medical documentation storage; in person visits; automated triaging; and symptom checker tools.

The startup also offers insurance companies access to an ‘insurance product creator’ to manage variants of their current product suite for specific groups of users.

Telemedico says its platform is used by “a number” of health ministries around the world, as well as PZU, Allianz, AXA, Metrored, Compensa, TU Zdrowie and more than 50 other insurance and medical assistance companies (“mostly” within the telemedicine space).

It does also offer a direct-to-consumer telehealth service in Poland, via the public healthcare system — where consultation fees are covered by the insurance of the publicly funded National Health Fund of Poland (i.e. free at the point of use for patients).

It also offers consultations via a fee-for-service model. Sieczkiewicz says its USP is “that we are built on three foundations: B2B, whitelabel and cross-country services”.

“Telemedico is primarily a B2B company,” he continues. “The majority of our business comes from recurring enterprise customers, such as insurance companies, banks, pharmacies and other companies who either offer health services and want to improve them with a digital layer or want to offer health services to their digital offering.

“We see a huge trend among insurance companies, that add new healthcare products to their offers. We help create those products with our so-called ‘insurance product creator’, providing them with tools for setting up and management of their digital health services, patient flow, and more.”

He also says the ‘plug and play’ style SaaS platform supports a modular approach — enabling the target b2b users to zero in on the most useful aspects of its platform for their particular customer case (be it telemedicine, drug ordering or automated triage).

The software can be completely integrated into a customer’s platform or run as a stand-alone product, he adds.

“Telemedicine is no longer an add-on to insurance packages but in many countries the first touchpoint with medical services — a way to increase patients satisfaction and decrease costs for the insurer,” Sieczkiewicz suggests.

Commenting on the Series A funding in a statement, Michael Szalontay, general partner at Flashpoint VC, said: “We are convinced that telemedicine will become a primary distribution channel for medical services in the next decade and Telemedico is poised to become a European leader in this domain. We are proud to become Pawel’s partner in Telemedico, he has an amazing energy and conviction, and in our experience, such gumption is a prerequisite for success.”

“This decade will be the Golden Twenties for telemedicine,” added Dr. Andreas Nemeth, general partner at UNIQA Ventures, in another supporting statement. “The potential is enormous and telemedi.co is already setting standards here today. telemedi.co has the right product, the right team and the right culture to support insurers in providing seamless telemedicine services. We are therefore delighted and proud to be able to follow the path together in the future and pleased to be able to become a part of the company’s international growth story.”

Another COVID-19 vaccine is almost ready to begin being distributed – a single-shot inoculation made by Johnson & Johnson’s Janssen pharmaceutical subsidiary. The company just released an efficacy report based on data from its Phase 3 trial, which found that the new vaccine is 66% effective overall in preventing moderate to severe incarnations of COVID-19 in those who received the jab, and 85% effective in preventing sever disease.

Those numbers aren’t as impressive as the reported figures for the Moderna and Pfizer/BioNTech vaccines that are already being distributed via emergency FDA approval, both of which reported 90+% efficacy. But Johnson & Johnson’s vaccine is a single shot rather than a two-course treatment, which should make it much easier to distribute much more quickly. The vaccine also showed 100% efficacy in preventing hospitalization or death among participants in the trial, 28 days after vaccination, which is a key measure when considering the broader impact of COVID-19 on healthcare resources, and efficacy varied by region, with the jab proving 72% effective in the U.S. across moderate and severe cases vs. 66% globally.

It’s also important to note that Johnson & Johnson’s Phase 3 trial is happening amid the emergence of new strains of the virus, including much more contagious versions like the UK and South African variants. At the time that both Moderna and BioNTech released their trial data, these variants hadn’t yet emerged or been confirmed by pandemic researchers.

Johnson & Johnson’s vaccine uses a modified version of a common cold virus to deliver DNA that provides a person’s body with instructions on building a replica of the spike protein that SARS-CoV-2 uses to attach to cells. The modified adenovirus can’t replicate in human cells, however, meaning it won’t lead to illness – only an immune response that can later be employed to combat contracting the virus that leads to COVID-19. This adenovirus method is much more proven in terms of use in human patients vs. the mRNA method that the other vaccines currently in use employ.

All of which is to say, despite headline numbers that appear to fall short relative to the data we’ve seen from Moderna and Pfizer, this Johnson & Johnson report is actually very encouraging. The company says it expects to file a request for an Emergency Use Approval (EUA) from the FDA in February, which could see it begin to be distributed next month, adding yet another weapon in the arsenal to combat the global pandemic.

New wellness startup Heights is formally launching this week, focusing on a category it describes as ‘braincare’. The startup will market “ultra high quality, sustainable plant-based supplements that feed your brain” based on what it says is scientific data.

It has raised a $2 million Seed funding round (£1.7M) via the Seedrs crowdfunding platform, with the round also including the institutional investor Forward Partners. Angel investors include Tom Singh (founder of New Look), Damian Bradfield (WeTransfer), Dhiraj Mukherjee (Shazam), Renee Elliot (Planet Organic), and celebrity investor Chris Smalling (an England and Manchester United professional footballer).

The funds will be used for customer growth and new product development, including soon-to-launch a ‘psychobiotic‘ probiotic aimed at cognition and mental health.

Customers first take a ‘brain health’ survey, then sign up for a monthly, quarterly, or annual subscription.

Customers need only take two capsules a day, thus hugely decreasing the complexity of juggling regular vitamin taking.

The product fits through a letterbox and the unusual bottle was designed by the well-known product design agency Pentagram. A content and coaching program included in the subscription helps customers, and another brain health survey happens after a month. Heights claims that “93%” improve their brain health score within one month.

Heights is not alone in this new market for what some describe as ‘designer vitamins’ and the arena is already populated by the likes of Hims / Hers, Motion, Vitabiotics and Bulletproof.

These companies broadly fall into the “Nootropics” category — vitamins and minerals designed to improve cognitive function, memory, creativity, or motivation, in healthy individuals. But the market is not small. The ‘self care’, ‘healthcare’, and ‘personal development’ market is worth over $1Trillion but supplements alone is worth at least $100BN+.

Heights founders Dan Murray-Serter and Joel Freeman, with adviser Dr. Tara Swart.

However, co-founder Dan Murray-Serter says Heights is aiming to do something different to the aforementioned players.

In a text-based interview, he said: “Nootropics as a category really focus on quick fixes, which is why we’re working on the category creation of ‘braincare’ because there are no ‘quick fixes’ in life, and that terminology and category have essentially set people up with the same false hopes as ‘get-rich-quick’ schemes do. We’re set up differently — aka, starting with scientifically researched articles and journal references.”

He said Heights will be positioned more like a skincare or haircare brand, “because people understand that the daily habit/practice is what creates the longevity and impact, not just a one-day miracle.”

Murray-Serter says there are 20 key nutrients science says our brains need to thrive, and these are mostly found in a combination of buying multivitamins, omega 3s, and ‘nootropics’. He says Heights has sourced the “highest quality” ingredients in the most ‘bioavailable form’ in a patented capsule which makes it easier to digest for the body.

“One of the most common reasons the habit of taking vitamins doesn’t stick for people is that the bottle goes into a cupboard and gets ignored. So we started with design alongside quality,” he says. The Heights vitamins come in a distinctive, recyclable bottle which Heights will also aven recycle if you send it back to them.

Murray-Serter, who previously founded the mobile startup Grabble, says he came up with the idea for the startup after a bout of chronic anxiety and a 6 month-long period of insomnia. The problem was solved by high-quality, high-density vitamins and supplements, as opposed to normal supplements which usually only have the lowest recommended daily levels of vitamins inside them.

After starting a newsletter on the subject of optimizing cognitive performance with cofounder Joel Freeman, the pair amassed a following of 60,000 readers www.yourheights.com/sundays

and then came up with the idea of launching the actual product.

The company now has a ‘Braincare‘ podcast that has reached 100,000 downloads, and the founders have also been joined by key team member Chief Science Officer, Dr Tara Swart (pictured).

Two things may help Heights. Firstly, in the era of Covid-19, public health authorities and governments around the world have recommended taking Vitamin D to boost the body’s immune system should someone fall prey to the disease. It’s not insignificant that two Heights capsules contain 400% of the ‘Nutrient Reference Value’ (formerly known as Recommended Daily Allowance) of Vitamin D3, as well as many other supplements. Theoretically, one could take four normal tablets of this, but the customer experience and other added vitamins in Heights will appeal to many. Secondly, the growing awareness of mental health and interest in maintaining good mental health is now a regular subject of public discourse. So Heights appears to be well-positioned to ride both those waves.

As the global pandemic continues, having options for keeping active at home is increasingly top-of-mind. Treadly is a startup focused on building a home treadmill that’s compact and convenient, with smart connected features that boost engagement. The company recently released its second-generation product, and it’s super compact, with hardware improvements that boost the weight limit for users and add cooling benefits that extend workout times.

Basics

Treadly’s design is probably a lot smaller than you’re expecting – it’s just 3.7-inches tall for the base, and it weights just 77 lbs. The whole deck is just 56-inches long by 25-inches wide, and there’s a flip-down handle that you extend when you want to jog at a faster pace, while folding it away for strictly walking workouts.

There’s a display built into the deck itself, offering a simple but easy to read black and white readout of key stats, including speed, total steps, time and distance. The handrail features manual controls, and the Treadly 2 can also be controlled either via a dedicated remote control for the basic model, or through the Treadly app (iOS only now, but Android coming soon) via Bluetooth for the upgraded Treadly 2 Pro version.

The Treadly 2 also features a built-in Bluetooth speaker, which allows you to connect your smartphone and play music via whatever app you want. The Treadly iOS app also offers community iterative training, and live video integration. Treadly is also introducing new groups features to the app to allow users form their own communities, and also new challenges that users can issue to one another, like step count records and more.

Design and features

Treadly’s design is very compact, as mentioned, and it’s the perfect size for small spaces. It’ll slide easily under most couches thanks to its low height, and it can also be stored vertically if you want to put it against the wall or in a larger closet. The design is also attractive and minimal, which make it more unobtrusive than most exercise equipment even if left out in plain view.

The built-in display in the deck itself is a nice accommodation for keeping the dimensions compact, while also providing all the feedback you’d expect from a piece of home gym equipment. It’d be easier to check periodically if it was mounted into the fold-down handlebar, but that would definitely lead to increased bulk. Plus, having the stats slightly difficult to access is probably actually better for many people, since zeroing in on those can make a workout more arduous than it needs to be.

For the basic model, the remote is effective and compact, with a wriststrap included so that you can keep track of it easily while using the treadmill. The built-in Bluetooth speaker isn’t amazing, as you might expect, but it’s more than good enough to provide a soundtrack if you don’t have other speakers or earbuds on hand to use.

Image Credits: Treadly

As for the experience of actually using Treadly 2 to run or walk, it definitely delivers, with a few caveats: First, don’t expect this to provide a true indoor running experience. While it definitely offers impressive weight capacity for a treadmill of this size, the max speed is 5 mph, which is a low-intensity jog for most people. With the handrail down, that drops to just 3.7 mph, which is a brisk walk.

For something this compact, that’s actually still very impressive – especially since there’s no time limit on how long you can use the treadmill at 5 mph thanks to Treadly 2’s new and improved cooling system. For avoiding a sedentary lifestyle while remaining mostly indoors, the Treadly 2’s speed settings more than deliver, and that’s probably enough for most users, advanced fitness buffs excluded.

Bottom line

The Treadly 2 is a connected treadmill that provides a great blend of convenience, social features, guided usage, connected control and space-saving design into a reasonably-priced package starting at $749 for the Basic and $849 for the Pro with special New Year Sale pricing. It’s like the Peloton that most people are actually more likely to use long-term, and it’s a great way to stay active during the long winter months in our unprecedented times.

Meet Sidecar Health, the newest member of the tech industry’s billion dollar healthcare startup club.

The valuation comes thanks to $125 million in new funding that the company will use to expand its new model for health insurance. Sidecar Health’s insurance plans give consumers the ability to pay directly for care — often at steep discounts to the prices that patients would be charged through traditional insurance plans.

A typical Sidecar Health plan costs $240 per-member, per-month and its flexibility has made it a popular choice for the nation’s 20 million to 30 million uninsured individuals, according to chief executive officer Patrick Quigley.

The core of Sidecar’s plan is an ability to offer its policy holders the ability to pay directly for their medical care — and shop around to find the best provider using pricing information that the company provides through its mobile app.

Sidecar’s app provides real-time, geo-located information on the costs of any number of medical procedures, consultations, or drugs — and allows its users to shop at the places that offer them the best deal — in some cases the company will even pay money back if a price-savvy healthcare shopper finds a better deal.

If this all sounds kind of dystopian and nightmarish — well, welcome to the world of American healthcare!

In an ideal world, low-cost medical care would be a right, not a privilege and a baseline level of healthcare access would be available to everyone — including an ability to pay a set price for drugs, consultations and treatment. But if you live in America, bargain hunting for care may be the best bet to curb skyrocketing healthcare costs — at least for now.

While Sidecar pitches its service for everyone, the average age of the company’s current patient population is 33 years-old, Quigley said.  “It’s typically people that earn more than $45,000 a year and less than $75,000,” said Quigley of the company’s demographics.

The way it works is that Sidecar issues its insured members what’s basically a debit card that they use to pay for care, prescriptions, and consultations directly. The money comes from Sidecar’s claims accounts and is paid directly to doctors. By avoiding the middleman (traditional insurance companies), Sidecar can reduce overhead for care providers who like to get paid directly and will offer discounts in exchange for receiving cash in hand.

“It is 40% cheaper than the traditional commercial insurance companies would pay,” said Quigley.

Sidecar covers around 170,000 medical conditions and procedures, according to Quigley — including things from horse therapy (it’s a thing) for anxiety relief to heart transplants and chemotherapy, Quigley said.

Sidecar is currently available in 16 states and hopes to expand to most of the country on the back of its latest round of funding.

And while the company is working with uninsured patient populations now, it’s hoping to also expand its footprint with government-backed healthcare plans and into employer-sponsored health insurance as well.

It’s still early days for the service, which has only been around through two open enrollment periods for would-be plan members to sign up. And while the company doesn’t disclose its membership figures, Quigley said it would end the year above 30,000 members.

“It’s still super early,” Quigley said. 

Despite the stage of the business, investors are convinced that the business model has an opportunity to transform health insurance in the US. 

“The extraordinary level of transparency Sidecar Health brings to the marketplace has the  potential to fundamentally change how millions of Americans shop for healthcare,” said Molly  Bonakdarpour, a partner at the Drive Capital, which provided early backing for the company. “We think Sidecar Health’s team of consumer,  technology and healthcare veterans is well positioned to capitalize on the large healthcare  insurtech opportunity.” 

For the latest round, Drive Capital was joined by new investors including BOND, Tiger Global and Menlo Ventures, according to a statement.

Sidecar Health will use the investment to expand its geographic footprint, grow its team and  invest in new insurance products that build on its success in the uninsured market. The first of  these will be an ACA or “Obamacare” offering for 2022, followed by a product for the self funded employer market. 

“We believe we can take $1 trillion in waste out of the U.S. healthcare system,” Quigley said. 

Liz Meyerdirk made a name for herself at Uber as the Senior Director & Global Head of Business Development for the company’s Uber Eats business and she’s now turning her attention to women’s health as the new chief executive of The Pill Club.

The move comes at a perilous time for the remote delivery of women’s healthcare as the Supreme Court has taken steps to limit the provision of sexual healthcare to women in recent months.

“Women’s health care has never been more tested than right now,” Meyerdirk noted in a blog post announcing her new role. “COVID-19 has upended access to care; dozens of states have—and continue—to try and limit women’s choice; and last year, the Supreme Court voted to uphold the rollback of the ACA contraceptive mandate decision, a stunning move that could end up impacting as many as 126,000 women who previously received covered contraception through employer-based health insurance.”

A seasoned corporate executive, Meyerdirk is hoping to navigate The Pill Club through these treacherous times. “These events have shown that reliable, safe, and affordable access to women’s health and birth control is
just one more vulnerability in our health care system,” Meyerdirk wrote.

Liz Meyerdirk, chief executive of The Pill Club: Image Credit: The Pill Club

As it faces an uncertain legal environment on some fronts, the company couldn’t be in a better position financially.

The Pill Club, which is profitable and now has a $100 million run rate, is now ready for its closeup with Meyerdirk at the helm.

The company has managed to make its mark in the crowded world of online prescriptions and refill fulfillment by focusing specifically on women’s health and ensuring that those services are available to as many potential patients as possible.

“We’re now serving hundreds of thousands of women nationwide with 20% on Medicaid,” says Meyerdirk. “We prescribe in 43 states and the District of Columbia.”

For Meyerdirk, the background she had in logistics and fulfillment from her time at Uber Eats made the transition to the pill prescription and delivery service natural.

“There is a heavy logistics element to it,” said Meyerdirk.

As Meyerdirk takes the reins of the company, she said there’s a few areas that The Pill Club will expand into beyond its focus on birth control and contraception. “There are areas that our customers are asking for,” Meyerdirk said.

These areas include, initially, dermatology. Last year the company launched a delivery service for contraceptives and women’s hygiene products like pads and tampons.

As it continues to expand its product suite, it’s also growing its executive staff. The company not only added Meyerdirk, but also David Hsu as chief financial officer and Jeremy Downs as senior vice president of growth. Hsu joins the company from Honey, where led the $4 billion acquisition negotiations with PayPal, and Downs comes from Uber Eats, where he spent five years leading growth.

“We need sustained, long-term access to women’s health care, not just a bridge while the pandemic persists; and we need coverage for essential health services like birth control and prenatal care, regardless of whether or not you’re insured,” Meyerdirk wrote. “Reproductive care has and continues to be an essential part of our business, but there are countless opportunities to serve women in all of their life stages from puberty to menopause.”