Everlywell raises $175M to expand at-home health testing, virtual care services

Dive Brief:

Everlywell has raised $175 million in Series D financing to expand its consumer lab testing operation and linked virtual care service.
The financing, which brings the total raised by Everlywell to more than $250 million, comes months after the digital health startup received FDA emergency use authorization for its at-home COVID-19 sample collection kit.
The do-it-yourself collection kit is part of a broader offering from Everlywell, which spans food sensitivity and allergy tests as well as telehealth services.

Dive Insight:

Everlywell had begun to establish itself before the pandemic, raising $50 million last year and making its tests available through Target, CVS and Humana. However, Everlywell’s role in the testing response to COVID-19 has raised its profile and prospects. In October, Bloomberg reported Everlywell was trying to raise more money at a valuation of $1 billion or more. The 2019 round valued Everlywell at $175 million.

Early in the pandemic, Everlywell was hit by FDA opposition to direct-to-consumer COVID-19 tests. The startup shifted, donating its stocks to health systems before going on to get an EUA for its sample collection kit in May.

"The pandemic has shed light on the challenges of lab testing for Americans, from unknown costs to confusion and inconvenience. We believe lab testing will be rapid, simple, and coupled with virtual care in the near future," Julia Cheek, founder and CEO of Everlywell, said in a statement.

Investors appear to be buying it. Funds and accounts managed by investors including BlackRock contributed to the financing round, joining with the leads of last year's $50 million round, Goodwater Capital, and a Series C that Everlywell raised quietly earlier this year, Highland Capital Partners, to give the startup $175 million.

The financing follows a period in which COVID-19 has accelerated the shift to remote care and sales of Everlywell's tests have grown. Everlywell said sales of most tests are growing "well over 100% year-over-year," in part due to actions by Target, Walgreens, CVS and Kroger that put the products in more than 10,000 retail locations. Total sales are projected to triple this year, Everlywell said.

Everlywell has grown its consumer-focused business while expanding its enterprise operation. This year, it said it has closed more than 100 deals with workplaces, universities, clinics and government offices and i also partnered with Exact Sciences Laboratories on its enterprise COVID-19 testing service.

The progress has attracted some major medtech executives. Dana Underwood, former global head of health tech products at Johnson & Johnson, joined recently as executive vice president of new business. Underwood arrived shortly after Andy Page, the former president of 23andMe and Livongo. Page has taken up the president post at Everlywell.

Everlywell will face stiff competition as it seeks to grow, particularly as it expands beyond its traditional focus on lab testing and into virtual care. COVID-19 has triggered a flurry of telehealth deals, with UpHealth Holdings and Cloudbreak Health merging and going public in the wake of SOC Telemed and Hims separately entering into agreements to list their stocks. On the lab side, Everlywell is up against the consumer-focused units of testing giants LabCorp and Quest Diagnostics.