A New Paradigm for Care: How “Virtual-First” Provides Better Access for All
Lightspeed Growth Co-Leads Series C Investment in Wheel
The doctor’s visit today isn’t what it used to be — and that’s GREAT.
What we once referred to as telehealth has evolved into a new care model where virtual-first is the default solution to how healthcare is delivered globally. It took a once-in-a-century global pandemic to accelerate this shift, but now we find ourselves at the cusp of a future in which virtual-first care becomes standard of care — a huge win for healthcare access and opportunity for innovation.
Leading the charge is Wheel, a company with a bold vision to extend virtual care to everyone, everywhere, in a way that is both personalized and accessible. Under the leadership of CEO and co-founder Michelle Davey, Wheel enables companies to break down operational barriers to provide real-time virtual care under their own brand, and it opens the door to a future in which patients can access the most appropriate health care providers for their needs — instantly, and all from their mobile devices.
Wheel’s status as both a pioneer and an industry leader in this space is what attracted Lightspeed when we led the $50 million Series B round last May, and it is for these same reasons and more that we are excited to co-lead the $150 million Series C round announced by Wheel today.
Wheel’s ascension in the virtual care space is a big deal; here are a few reasons why:
1) Watershed moment in digital solutions to healthcare access
At a time when clinician shortages, barriers to accessible care and other entrenched problems within our healthcare system underscore the need to find greater efficiencies, the shift from telehealth to virtual-first care has never been so important. A variety of companies — from digital health, to traditional health, to big tech — are seizing the opportunity to build virtual care solutions of the future. Despite the much-welcomed fervor, the process to stand up virtual care remains highly costly in both time and capital. Wheel’s platform provides these organizations a much needed suite of solutions and a nationwide clinician network to massively accelerate launching and growing virtual care solutions. Equally (if not more) important, we now see the potential for truly patient-centered, comprehensive virtual care service that moves beyond the video visit towards the many services across labs and diagnostics, remote monitoring and pharmacy, and others that comprise holistic care.
2) Setting a scalable foundation for healthcare innovation
Healthcare innovation in the U.S. has long been hindered by many factors, from oligopolistic systems to outdated legacy technologies that fail to interoperate, and many more. Virtual care presents a rare opportunity to rethink and build a more robust infrastructure for tomorrow. Wheel built a platform that melds world-class technology with deep operational and clinician empathy — one that optimizes the time and experience of our vital clinician workforce while also managing demand and supply efficiencies to continue to expand access and affordability to patients. Building such a platform is complicated; it requires deep technology development, workflow and API integrations spanning security, forecasting, and staffing design among the many building blocks of a next-generation solution. This vision and execution will enable Wheel to lead today and into the next chapters of the transformation of care toward which we’re building for global scale.
3) Opportunities to invest both for profit and purpose
While the principle of any investment is securing a profitable return, the mission behind an investment — particularly in healthcare — should be to fulfill a virtuous purpose. At its core, Wheel provides a transformative solution to important barriers to care through digital approaches that put patients at the center of their own care. Lightspeed’s investment in Wheel stands as a great example of how social good is good business.
These are many reasons we were thrilled to back Wheel. As a multi-stage investment firm, Lightspeed is a platform to catalyze and support companies from the earliest founding days to the growth chapters of their journeys. Wheel is a prime example — we backed the team in the Series B out of our early stage fund and are thrilled to co-lead the Series C through Lightspeed Growth, our dedicated fund to scale existing portfolio companies and invest in new opportunities at inflections of growth. Wheel is on a roll, and we are excited to support the team and see the impact on the many organizations and the millions of patients they serve.
By Ling Wong, Galym Imanbayev, and James Ephrati
