Transforming Cardiac Care: Our Investment in Hello Heart

Cardiac disease affects a shockingly high portion of the American population — 47% of adults suffer from hypertension, and cardiovascular conditions are the chronic disease driving the highest share of spend across the U.S. healthcare system.

However, as disease-specific digital health solutions have exploded in terms of both new company innovation and employer adoption over the past 5-10 years, cardiology has been largely overlooked. We don’t believe this is for lack of will — many benefits leaders note a strong desire to improve heart health for their employee populations. However, most digital options in the market focus on addressing hypertension as a secondary element of other disease states such as diabetes. More importantly, existing solutions have not delivered the type of engaging, well designed product offering that can really move the needle on this crucially important problem.

Hello Heart’s Solution:

Hello Heart is the first dedicated digital health program that HR/benefits leaders at self-insured employers purchase to address hypertension and overall heart health among their employee populations. Patients engage with Hello Heart on an ongoing basis through its mobile application to track their blood pressure, BMI, medication, and other indicators of heart health. Hello Heart’s automated digital coaching and content prompts employee engagement, and their technology leverages data collected to drive interventions before cardiac crises arise.

Patients love Hello Heart. Hello Heart’s positive reinforcement and easy-to-use mobile application allow patients to feel in control of their overall heart health and make positive changes to their daily habits. Users can instantly see the impact that healthier lifestyle choices like a cleaner diet or more time spent exercising have on their health by tracking core cardiology indicators within Hello Heart’s application. Hello Heart has consistently seen best-in-class patient engagement with 3x higher enrollment/ongoing engagement relative to competitors.

There is substantive clinical research supporting Hello Heart’s ability to improve patient outcomes while reducing associated employer medical costs. According to a recent peer-reviewed study published in JAMA, 84% of Hello Heart users with baseline blood pressure over 140/90 saw sustained reductions in blood pressure for up to three years. The Hello Heart program also resulted in an average 21mmHg improvement in systolic blood pressure for hypertensive patients.

Building off exceptional patient engagement and clinical results to date, we believe Hello Heart is well positioned to expand their product into a whole heart health solution. Leveraging their existing technology and enormous dataset, Hello Heart is on a clear path toward deepening their clinical capabilities and continuing to build strong partnerships to support patients through the entire spectrum of cardiac care.

Stripes Leads Hello Heart’s $70M Series D

We couldn’t be more excited to partner with Hello Heart as they continue along the journey of improving hypertension and overall cardiology care in the U.S.

Our investment in Hello Heart reflects our broader focus on tech-enabled care delivery. Self-insured employers in particular recognize the benefits of investing in digital health solutions to improve employee wellbeing, decrease ballooning healthcare costs, and boost employee retention. We expect employers to continue investing in their digital health programs, with a recent Mercer study finding that over two-thirds of US employers are planning to invest more in digital solutions over the next five years.

We got to know Maayan and Hello Heart over the course of several months and were instantly impressed by the team’s deep and unwavering dedication to their mission while achieving best-in-class patient engagement and top-line growth. Through our partnerships with companies like Remitly, Oyster, Flatiron Health, and Udemy over the years at Stripes, we have come to understand the importance of building mission-driven companies tackling enormous problems with amazing products.

Hello Heart has the potential to improve the lives of millions of Americans while changing the way in which large employers manage cardiac diseases. We can’t wait to support the team every step of the way!