Strive Health snags $550M for AI-driven kidney care

Strive Health, which offers an AI-driven kidney care model, has raised $550 million in a Series D funding round, with $300 million secured via a Series D equity round and $250 million via debt financing.

Strive Health's value-based care model combines AI-based predictive analytics technology and care interventions to support patients through their kidney care journey, from chronic kidney disease to end-stage kidney disease. The company focuses on early intervention and preventative care, using AI to identify patients with kidney disease early and integrating with local providers to offer treatment.

The company has partnered with numerous healthcare providers and payers since its founding in 2018. Strive Health also partners with commercial health plans, Medicare Advantage payers and Medicare, serving over 145,000 people across 50 states.

The company plans to use the new funds to strengthen partnerships, grow its services and expand its use of AI-driven tools and analytics to enhance its kidney care model. New Enterprise Associates (NEA) led the equity funding, while Hercules Capital led the debt financing. The company received additional investments from CVS Health Ventures, CapitalG, Echo Health Ventures, Town Hall Ventures and Redpoint.

"We recognize that clinician-led healthcare solutions with meaningful scale are where AI implementations will have the most impact when it comes to improving outcomes for chronic disease management and preventive care -- but those companies also happen to be exceedingly rare," said Mohamad Makhzoumi, co-CEO of NEA, in the press release. "NEA remains a proud supporter of Strive's mission of deploying its innovative care model to slow the progression of kidney disease and we are excited at the potential for Strive's impact to grow exponentially with this more than half a billion-dollar capital raise."

The fundraising round comes on the heels of several massive fundraising rounds in the health AI space.

Ambience Healthcare recently raised $243 million in a Series C funding round to scale its AI platform for clinical documentation and coding, while Abridge raised $300 million in Series E funding with the goal of improving revenue cycle management for healthcare providers.

Anuja Vaidya has covered the healthcare industry since 2012. She currently covers the virtual healthcare landscape, including telehealth, remote patient monitoring and digital therapeutics.