Empathy Health Technologies announced it raised $7.6 million to expand its value-based care partnership with payers, aiming to prevent relapse into addiction treatment settings through its Sober Sidekick platform.
The Bentonville, Arkansas-based startup has raised a total of $11.4 million. HealthX Ventures led the round. Nina Capital, Ikigai Healthcare Funds, American Heart Association Ventures, Suncoast Ventures, Cortado Ventures and Wilson Sonsini Investment Co. participated as well.
Empathy Health Technologies’ Sober Sidekick mobile app pairs peer engagement with predictive analytics to detect distress and potential relapse. It purports to be the “world’s largest peer-powered substance-use disorder (SUD) recovery platform.”
It has about 145,000 active monthly users and has been downloaded 1.1 million times, according to a press release.
“Recovery has always rewarded people for coming back after they fall,” Chris Thompson, CEO and founder of Empathy Health Technologies, said in the release. “We’re building the infrastructure that helps people stay on their feet in the first place.”
The company will use the infusion of cash to establish new value-based care partnerships with payers, hire staff to work on its predictive analytics and user support, enhance its predictive technology and build operational infrastructure.
The company’s Empathy Algorithm at work within Sober Sidekick analyzes users’ behavior and language to detect patterns that indicate the risk of relapse. The platform then engages the user and helps them connect to peers on the platform. Use of the app is intended to prevent relapse and, therefore, mitigate potential health care costs that payers must cover.
The company eventually hopes to use payers’ claim data to deploy a population-intelligence model that stratifies member risk and acuity for relapse.
Sober Sidekick also connects users to community support and coordinated navigation.
“Most of the healthcare system sees relapse months after it happens, hidden in utilization data,” Kristi Ebong, partner at HealthX Ventures, said in the news release. “Empathy Health is the first organization I’ve seen that can detect relapse risk while it’s unfolding and intervene in the moment. Turning peer engagement into predictive intelligence represents a novel model for how substance-use disorder is managed and measured.”
Recovery from opioid addiction is especially difficult to articulate, track and achieve. Of those with any significant alcohol or drug use problem, one study finds that about 5% said they resolved issues related to opioid use. By comparison, that same study found that 51% of those with a use disorder reported resolved issues related to alcohol use.