Hi! My name is Jason Bornhorst, and I am the CEO and co-founder of First Dollar. Our mission is to make healthcare work better by improving how people pay for it. Today, I’m excited to announce that we’ve closed a $14M Series A funding round led by the Blue Venture Fund. Here’s what’s got me excited (beyond the funding, which is also pretty cool). We want to solve health care payments.
We’re excited about what we’re doing.
Tax-advantaged accounts and supplemental benefits have the power to be transformative for everyday Americans. These programs save money, fill gaps, and help keep folks out of the clinic. Yet, few eligible members take advantage of HSAs, FSAs, HRAs, and more. The original promise of these benefits has not been met. Why? Most consumer-directed benefits are hard to use. Sometimes this is by design. Many players in the industry don't care whether benefits are being utilized, as long as they get paid. Worse, some companies make more money when benefits aren't used.
Behind most consumer-directed benefits lies a hodgepodge of legacy systems built for a different time. We think all plans should aspire to 100% benefit utilization. Customers who love to use their benefits are cheaper and less expensive to insure. They're also more loyal. And 100% utilization is also just the right thing to do. Members work incredibly hard to earn their benefits in the first place. As an industry, we must do everything we can to help ensure the health and well-being of the people we serve.
We’re excited about the investors joining our team.
I’m excited about the health care leaders who are joining the First Dollar team as investors. This includes our Series A lead Blue Venture Fund. Blue Venture Fund is a unique collaboration among Blue Cross Blue Shield (BCBS) companies, the Blue Cross Blue Shield Association, and Sandbox, to which thirty-five BCBS companies have committed over $890 million across four funds. (They’re a big deal.)
First Dollar is also fortunate enough to have the following investors on board:
- Next Coast Ventures
- Meridian Street Capital
- Jonathan Bush, Zus Health CEO
- Julia Cheek, Everly Health CEO
- Marc Weiser, RPM Ventures Managing Director
- Sean Joyce, Patientco CTO
- Nick Soman, CEO of Decent
- Fay Rotenberg, CEO of Firefly Health
- Brian Gambs, CTO Bright Health Group
We’re excited about what’s next.
Our early customers include modern health plans like Bright Health, Sidecar Health, Kind Health, and Decent Health. From HSAs and FSAs to prepaid grocery and Rx programs, our payments infrastructure supports tax-advantaged accounts, supplemental benefits, and whatever our customers dream up next. With an NPS of 80 and proven account utilization 36% above the industry average, First Dollar is working to build a better way to pay for healthcare. This new round of funding will help us accomplish that mission.
The Series A investment will fuel the expansion of the First Dollar Health Wallet platform into additional benefit types and further deepen First Dollar’s technology-first advantage, adding to existing APIs, embeddable UX widgets, and best-in-class member workflows to get health plans started fast.
Stay tuned.
