Soda Health closes oversubscribed $50M Series B led by General Catalyst to scale its Smart ...

BENTONVILLE, Ark., Dec. 03, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Soda Health, a health tech company enhancing the use of benefit dollars to improve health outcomes and reduce inequities, today announced a $50M Series B financing. General Catalyst led the round with additional capital from former Humana CEO, Bruce Broussard, and participation from existing investors Lightspeed Venture Partners, Define Ventures, Qiming Venture Partners USA, and SVB Capital. Caitlin Donovan of General Catalyst has joined Soda Health’s board of directors.

In 2024, over 33M seniors rely on Medicare Advantage for $131B of supplemental benefits and reward dollars—a key enrollment driver as inflation continues to raise the cost of groceries and over-the-counter products. Even so, the administration of these benefits haven’t kept up with technology, trends in retail, or shopping behavior, limiting how health plans and members can optimize their spend and leaving them frustrated by inaccurate item assortments, confusion over which products can be purchased, and outdated methods of accessing their benefits.

The Soda Health benefits administration platform takes aim at these challenges by aligning incentives across payors, retailers, and consumers to unlock greater value and deliver better outcomes for all. To meet the essential needs of health plans and their members, Soda Health harnesses an extensive retail network to streamline the delivery of benefits for food, health products, and pharmacy services nationwide. The platform delivers benefits for all through efficient and personalized offerings, including:

• Members receive a simplified benefits experience with easy-to-use Smart Benefits and a consumer-grade member experience to support stronger health outcomes and ease of navigation.
• Health plans can design, launch, and scale benefit programs supported by a vast retail network and best-in-class analytics tools to enhance member experience, optimize utilization, close care gaps, and improve STAR ratings.
• Retailers become a vital part of health care delivery by leveraging their weekly touch-points with members to drive high ROI benefit spend and motivate the right behaviors via their integrated pharmacies and registered dieticians.
  

“We are on a mission to ensure supplemental benefits add value to all in the healthcare ecosystem – that they keep patients healthier, enable retailers to leverage their relationship with consumers, and provide a key touchpoint to patients for payors,” said Robby Knight, co-founder and CEO of Soda Health.

The Soda Health Smart Benefits platform enables members to use their benefit dollars on approved goods and services and get rewarded for conveniently closing gaps in care at their favorite local retailers. Utilizing a first-of-its-kind open loop payments infrastructure, Smart Benefits adjudicate item-level purchases in real time at over 50K retail locations across the U.S., including Kroger, Albertsons, CVS, and Hy-Vee, among other major retail chains and local ethnic grocers. “Soda Health has amassed a high-value network with the most innovative retailers in the country. They are uniquely positioned to create a new incentive structure to better serve members, health plans, and retailers to improve outcomes and lower the cost of care,” said Bruce Broussard.

"We believe there are smarter ways to optimize health plan spending. Soda Health and their &more network offer a solution that uses supplemental benefit dollars more wisely—delivering better data, closing care gaps, and driving patient outcomes on what we see as a best-in-class, secure, and flexible platform,” said Caitlin Donovan, partner at General Catalyst. “Healthcare is an interconnected ecosystem, and when a company aligns the needs of payors, providers, retailers, and patients, it’s a win for all.”

Founded in 2021 by former Walmart and Optum executives, Soda Health has experienced rapid growth as it improves members’ lives daily. The Series B investment will serve as an accelerator for the company’s growing retail transactions and enhance core services. The funds will be used to scale operations, launch new data products, and expand capabilities to new CMS-compliant benefit categories and gap closure strategies to improve Star ratings. These advancements will enable the company to achieve risk-based structures with Medicare Advantage and Medicaid plans and dramatically expand the set of CMS-compliant benefit offerings to measurably reduce the cost of care and improve health outcomes.

To learn more about Soda Health, the Smart Benefits platform, and other solutions for health plans, visit our website.

About Soda Health

Soda Health aims to reduce health inequity across the healthcare industry through its unique Smart Benefits technology platform. Smart Benefits connect people to products and services they need, when they need them, so they can live healthier lives. Soda Health partners nationwide with health plans and retailers to deliver expansive benefits for essentials such as healthy foods, OTC medications, or transportation. Beyond facilitating transactions, Soda Health understands each individual's needs and connects people to the resources they need to live healthier lives.

About General Catalyst

General Catalyst is a global investment and transformation company that partners with the world’s most ambitious entrepreneurs to drive resilience and applied AI. We support founders with a long-term view who challenge the status quo, partnering with them from seed to growth stage and beyond. With offices in San Francisco, New York City, Boston, Berlin, Bangalore, and London, we have supported the growth of 700+ businesses, including Airbnb, Anduril, Applied Intuition, Commure, Glean, Guild, Gusto, Helsing, Hubspot, Kayak, Livongo, Mistral, Ramp, Samsara, Snap, Stripe, Sword, and Zepto.

Contact:
Julie Fleischer
Email: julie.fleischer@sodahealth.com