By offering a better customer experience for healthcare payments, Philadelphia-based InstaMed created a new market and was acquired by JPMorgan Chase a year ago for a reported $500 million-plus.
But by no means is the market closed to competition. In fact, new investments are springing up all over the place. New York-based Cedar just scored a $102M series C funding round, led by Andreessen Horowitz, which has also been active in Philly lately. Cedar describes itself as having payment systems similar to InstaMed. I’ve found no information as to how much in payments Cedar is processing.
Also, Atlanta-based Patientco seems to be offering similar services. And San Francisco-based Alpha Heath just raised $29 million, led by Andreesson Horowitz again.
Total US healthcare expenditures are just under $4 trillion per year. Out of pocket consumer payments are about 10% of that, or $400 billion. That’s the primary market InstaMed serves. The market has grown faster than total expenditures, largely due to higher deductibles..
InstaMed is currently processing about $100 billion per year.
Some time before the JPMorgan acquisition, I had discussed with InstaMed management whether its product would become”smarter”, perhaps offering consumers more benefits and options.. I was told that InstaMed had operated to that point with a single objective of growing payment volume in a highly secure environment. That focus payed off. But I still think more intelligence could be built into its product.
Covid-19 has added complexities, but it could convert more consumers to online payments. InstaMed.now has just shy of 300 employees between Philadelphia and its Newport Beach data center according to LinkedIn (sometimes not a perfect indicator). It had 258 employees at the time of its acquisition.
JPMorgan is also part of joint venture Haven, along with Amazon and Berkshire Hathaway, that aims to revolutionize healthcare.