LOS ANGELES--(BUSINESS WIRE)--HeyRenee, Your Personal Care Concierge™, is the latest innovation from Dr. Renee Dua and Nick Desai, co-founders of Heal who spent seven years building the award-winning home-centric primary care company. Launching in early 2022, HeyRenee's focus is a uniquely patient-centric digital health platform designed to make better healthcare a reality for all Americans, especially the elderly, underserved, and those managing chronic conditions. Unlike previous approaches to synchronize patient care, HeyRenee is the first-ever open platform that will eventually work with every provider, partner, and point solution to curate the perfect combination of services for each patient's specific needs.
Quiet Capital led the oversubscribed $3.8 million funding round, with Mucker Capital, Fika Ventures, Tau Ventures, Global Founders Capital and SaaS Venture Capital also participating. HeyRenee is using seed proceeds to curate digital health partners, build a world-class team of product & engineering leaders, and win early customers.
“It is impossibly difficult for all of us, certainly older, sicker Americans, to follow the many instructions from their doctors,” said Dr. Renee Dua, a practicing nephrologist who served as Chief of Medicine at Heal upon founding the company in 2014. “Those instructions are the recipe for patients to lead happier, healthier lives, and people need help managing those instructions. Our hope for HeyRenee is for us to build something to finally slow the progression and exploding costs of easily treated chronic diseases like obesity, diabetes, hypertension and mental health issues by taking the burden of managing healthcare and making it effortless.”
Eighty-five percent of the people who used Telehealth during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 had a household income over $150,000. However, the true potential of the digital health revolution is to transform care for the neediest amongst us. HeyRenee aims to do that by demystifying and integrating previously disconnected point solutions and providers to work together in a data-driven symphony in a delightfully easy patient-centric experience.
“We're in the first inning of realizing the true potential of the digital transformation of American healthcare,” said Nick Desai, co-founder of HeyRenee. “Starting with underserved and elderly polychronic patients, HeyRenee will help all Americans proactively manage all aspects of their healthcare to lead healthier, happier lives.”
HeyRenee intends to ease the burden of healthcare coordination — from appointment scheduling, in-home services and medication delivery to Telehealth and symptom and vital signs monitoring, all in one easy-to-use and highly intuitive app.
“Everyone should get the best choices based on their coverage, and everyone needs a Renee — a best friend to hold their hand through their healthcare journey,” continued Dr. Dua.
“I’ve been looking for ways to work with Nick and Renee for nearly seven years — since they were just getting Heal off the ground,” said Morgan Livermore, Partner at Quiet Capital. “When we started talking about the idea for HeyRenee, it became clear how HeyRenee could improve the trajectories of health outcomes for the most at risk population in the country and so many more. We think HeyRenee is what the world needs and Nick and Renee are the people to build it.”
“HeyRenee is a brilliant idea and the fact that this idea comes from Nick and Renee, who previously co-founded Heal, a company we respect very much, makes it all the more exciting,” said Amit Garg, Managing Partner at Tau Ventures. "At Tau we invest in AI-first companies and having a moat around data is key. We believe in the benefits HeyRenee will offer to help seniors with major tasks around healthcare — schedule appointments, take the right medications in a timely manner, get services and help improve their lives.”
ABOUT HEYRENEE
HeyRenee is the personal health concierge, everyone, especially those managing chronic illnesses and conditions, has wanted and needed. The patient-centric HeyRenee platform is designed to consolidate, coordinate, communicate and connect all aspects of medical care. Through long-sought data integration with healthcare providers, the platform endeavors to eventually help all Americans, the underserved especially, connect with their entire healthcare team and relieve the burdens of appointment scheduling, in-home visits, prescription medication administration to Telehealth and remote patient monitoring, and more. Co-founders, Dr. Renee Dua and Nick Desai, have created HeyRenee to serve as a digital best friend that can bridge the divide in the digital transformation of American healthcare. The HeyRenee platform will help achieve health equity through innovation. Learn more here: HeyRenee.co
ABOUT DR. RENEE DUA AND NICK DESAI
Nick Desai, CEO and Co-Founder
Nick Desai is an accomplished entrepreneur who has started and led four successful start-ups over the last 20 years, including Heal – a company he co-founded to re-boot the U.S. healthcare system leveraging the transformative power of technology-enabled doctor house calls.
Nick’s previous start-ups have been award-winning and innovative leaders in technology-enabled fitness and weight loss, social media and mobile applications, and the web’s first self-updating address book. He’s taken this knowledge and co-founded HeyRenee.
Nick earned his Bachelor of Science degree in Electrical and Computer Engineering from UC Irvine, where he was awarded the 2018 Lauds and Laurels Distinguished Alumni Award, and a Master of Science degree in Electrical Engineering from UCLA. Nick is a recognized speaker and author who has spoken at venues ranging from the Consumer Electronics Show to Harvard Business School and has written for the Huffington Post and numerous other publications.
Dr. Renee Dua, Chief Strategy Officer and Co-Founder
Dr. Dua is a licensed physician practicing nephrology, internal medicine and hypertension. She has previously served as Chief of Medicine at Valley Presbyterian and Simi Valley Hospitals. She completed her Bachelor of Science degree in Biochemistry at UC San Diego, her MD at Chicago Medical School/Rosalind Franklin University, her residency at UCLA, and her fellowship in nephrology at USC. Renee is a noted industry speaker and her recent engagements include CES19 on Telehealth and the Uberization of Healthcare, and co-founding Heal with her husband Nick.
After seeing the aftermath of a surgery gone wrong for her father, she saw that his memory was greatly affected. He had a new cognitive background because the hospital stay wiped him out. She became his caretaker, and is taking this knowledge with her into HeyRenee because she believes everyone needs a “Renee” as a best friend on their healthcare journey.
