NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Ilant Health, a pioneering leader in value-based obesity management and cardiometabolic health solutions, announced today the extension of its seed round of fundraising from $3 million to $5.5 million. The women-led startup received additional funds from a combination of new health-oriented investors, including funds from LifeX Ventures, Celtic House Asia Partners, and Cornucopian Capital, as well as existing investors reaffirming their commitment to Ilant Health's transformative mission.
The decision to extend the seed round comes on the heels of Ilant’s accelerating traction due to its robust clinical model and proprietary analytics. Notably, Ilant Health has garnered significant recognition, winning all three World 50 Group Academies — EHIR, HPIR, and PHIR, — and being selected for Highmark and Allegheny Health Network's accelerator, AlphaLab Health. The company recently won the Employee Health Innovation Roundtable (EHIR) Traction Award, which recognizes the company garnering the greatest level of interest from EHIR employer members.
"AlphaLab Health looks for companies to solve problems facing healthcare today,” said Dr. Jeffrey Cohen, Chief Physician Executive at Allegheny Health Network. “Obesity is a major healthcare problem without an organized market approach to solving it. Ilant’s team incorporated behavioral modification, medical and surgical therapies into an organized approach utilizing their proprietary algorithm to tailor the best answer for each patient. We believe they will have a bright future helping provider and payor systems solve this critical healthcare need."
As Ilant Health continues to gain widespread attention for its innovative value-based approach, it owes much of its success to the women who played pivotal roles in its success. Elina Onitskanky, CEO of Ilant Health, founded the company knowing that the gender gap in venture capital funding meant only 2% of funding goes toward women founders. However, Ilant has benefited from the steadfast support of healthcare leaders and other women leaders and investors, who helped shape the company into where it is today.
Elina, a Harvard Business School graduate, has gained support from several alumnae during the company’s growth. Her colleague Jessica Muse, who saw the potential as an angel investor, joined as a co-founder and Chief Operating Officer of Ilant Health in the early days of the company’s inception. Rika Christanto, Partner of LifeX Ventures, saw the vision for Ilant Health as it continued to grow, and demonstrated her confidence by investing $2 million in the company. Similarly, Chrissie Francona, acting as a scout for Pillar Ventures, recognized the potential of the startup and extended her support through investment.
“At LifeX, we deeply analyze tech breakthroughs and systemic shifts in healthcare. But it's very hard to sift good founders from bad. So it was a serendipitous moment when I learned that Elina and Jess, classmates whom I have repeatedly seen manage difficult situations and reliably achieve the impossible, were building a company together,” said Christanto. “Their combined experience made them uniquely positioned to solve this health epidemic in a scalable way and gain commercial traction at a level we have rarely seen for a company at this stage. I am thrilled to back them, and have utter conviction in their ability to deliver both outsized returns and societal impact.”
Ilant Health's ongoing commercial traction is evident through the successful launch of clinical services to multiple employers and the use of its claims analytics for hundreds of thousands of lives on behalf of large health plans and employers. Ilant’s claims analytics, driven by unstructured machine learning, have provided notable insights around the potential to drive reductions in total cost of care and return on investment from obesity treatment.
Outcomes from Ilant’s clinical care to date underscore its ability to engage individuals with the greatest need for care, including those with higher BMIs and medical comorbidities, all while maintaining a world-class Net Promoter Score (NPS). Ilant supports its members in understanding and selecting optimal treatment options – many of which are not GLP-1s– and then provides exceptional integrated care through obesity medicine physicians, dietitians and mental health specialists.
As part of this raise, Ilant has also engaged prominent industry advisors, including Teri Wisness, former Director of U.S. Benefits at Google and Partner at Iron Street Advisors, and Meghan Fitzgerald, former executive at Cardinal Health and member of the Board of Directors at Tenet Healthcare. Wisness commented "When I met the Ilant team, I was impressed by how they are bringing something new to the obesity treatment market - truly solving employer needs by addressing both utilization management and care provision, recognizing the need to provide a range of solution options, and focusing on accountability for outcomes.”
With the extended seed round, Ilant Health is poised to further innovate and disrupt the healthcare industry, leveraging its unique analytics and value-based approach to address the growing challenges of obesity and cardiometabolic health. For more information on Ilant Health, please visit www.ilanthealth.com.
ABOUT ILANT HEALTH
Ilant Health is an obesity and cardiometabolic health company, focused on increasing access to treatment while reducing total cost of care for employers and payers through value-based care. Ilant Health provides the single front door for individuals with obesity, delivering end-to-end evidence-based solutions (bariatric surgery, medication, intense behavioral therapy) through a technology-enabled and analytics-driven obesity medicine practice. To learn more about Ilant Health, please visit their website at https://www.ilanthealth.com/.
