For years, Sammy Fakery has heard from her mother and sister, both nutritionists, about how many Americans eat poorly and struggle to provide nutrition counseling.
Nearly half of adults in this country suffer from chronic diseases related to unhealthy diets, yet health plans have a limited number of in-network dietitians.
Faikaly decided to create a platform where RDs like her mother and sister could start their own practice while still being covered by insurance.
He started working on Fay, a startup that connects RDs with insurance and patients, in 2021 while an MBA student at Harvard Business School. About a year after Faycurry first launched the initiative himself, he asked his Mark Stefanski to join him as a researcher. C.T.O.
On Wednesday, Fay emerged from stealth after quietly raising $25 million from General Catalyst and Forerunner Ventures, which has been a part of the company since 1984 and includes the founders of Grow Therapy and Maven Clinic.
Fay offers RDs a franchise model that has gained popularity among certain types of healthcare providers in recent years. The so-called Business Inbox provides healthcare professionals, such as dietitians and therapists, with tools to run their practices, including filing claims, receiving payments, and matching patients.
“Insurance companies love seeing patients get better. And with our platform, you can earn almost 5 to 8 times more as an independent practitioner than you would in a hospital. Dietitians love it because they can,” Fakery told TechCrunch.
Other startups that have adopted this business model include Grow, a network for therapists that raised $88 million in Series C led by Sequoia and Nourish last month. Like Faye, the company matches RDs and patients. Nourish closed a $35 million Series A round led by Index Ventures in March.
Fay currently has 1,000 RDs on its platform, allowing people covered by Anthem, United Healthcare, Aetna CVS, Blue Cross, Cigna, Optum, Humana, and other insurance companies to pay weekly or We make our services available every two weeks. -payment.
“Costs for payers and employers have been rising for a long time. Everyone was saying diet, diet, diet, and no one was doing anything about it,” Fakery said.
Oddly enough, many of Faye's patients are people taking Ozempic and other GLP-1 drugs, which are now being touted as miracle weight-loss drugs. That's because doctors who prescribe these drugs require their patients to see a nutritionist to help them develop healthy habits. “I've seen people lose 25 pounds, but still have high cholesterol because they're eating slices of bacon with every meal,” Fakery says.
Nicole Johnson, a partner at Forerunner Ventures, said her firm was impressed by Mr. Fay's execution. “They got off to a really quick start and grew revenue at an incredibly fast pace while consuming very little capital.” And Fay has big plans to expand into meal delivery in the future. Mr. Johnson said.