Bright.md, the leading healthcare automation company, has closed an $8 million Series C round of funding co-led by B Capital and Seven Peaks Ventures. This latest funding brings current capital raised to $20.5 million across all rounds as the company steps up deployment of its flagship SmartExam™ capacity-boosting care-delivery platform in hospitals and healthcare systems across the United States and Canada.

"Health systems are strained for resources as patients with COVID-19 symptoms and concerns overwhelm their offices and emergency departments. To aid them in this time of critical need - and support important shelter-in-place and social-distancing protocols - we're aggressively expediting Bright.md's market expansion," said Ray Costantini, M.D., co-founder and CEO of Bright.md. "Our investors, including Seven Peaks Ventures and B Capital, continue to emphatically support our purpose of making healthy happen faster by increasing clinical capacity through our technology, and, whenever possible, keeping patients out of critical care settings."

Bright.md will use the funding to expand the footprint and function of its award-winning, AI-powered, virtual-care platform SmartExam; expand to new markets; and increase headcount to bolster those efforts.

Supporting Health Systems in Their Time of Need
The profound extent to which COVID-19 is impacting our healthcare system has become clear. Bright.md added COVID-19 evaluation to SmartExam's existing modules within a week of the first reported U.S. case in January 2020. Since then, the company has supported care for more than 37,000 patients with COVID-19-like symptoms, identifying more than 1,200 in need of additional evaluation and testing. Bright.md's software helped one healthcare system evaluate, diagnose and treat more than 4,500 patients with COVID-19-like symptoms in only three days, using fewer than 10 FTEs of clinician capacity. For comparison, they would have only been able to care for 600 in person or via video visits. In the last month alone, Bright.md's COVID-19 related care automation has freed more than 750,000 minutes of valuable provider time.

While clinicians fight a front-line battle against a global pandemic and address the fears of an onslaught of "COVID-19 concerned" patients, they still must find ways to treat everyday issues like earaches, pink eye and urinary tract infections.

Bright.md's care-delivery platform, SmartExam, works like a virtual physician's assistant. The AI-powered platform automates 90% of a primary or urgent care visit, boosting provider efficiency 15x and increasing capacity to treat hundreds of patients in a single provider shift. Healthcare systems use SmartExam to deliver treatment for hundreds of conditions, such as flu, pediatrics, dermatology, muscular-skeletal and behavioral health issues.

By intelligently and automatically combining patient-intake data, interview information, electronic health records and clinical-workflow integration, the platform enables providers to rapidly diagnose and treat patients with low-acuity conditions, escalating those with more serious conditions to a higher level of care.

"While COVID-19 care is critical now, patients continue to face other conditions and need treatment," said Dr. Costantini. "Understandably, many people will not want to risk leaving home and being exposed to COVID-19. We want to make SmartExam available to every health system nationwide and around the world, because that means we are freeing their providers to treat the sickest patients without neglecting the rest. With this funding and team, and incredibly supportive investors, we're even better equipped to do so."

Bright.md is working with some of the largest health systems in the country that provide care to tens of millions of patients across more than half of the United States and Canada.

They are building a clearinghouse of insight into the state of low-acuity conditions. The company tracks seasonal health, demographic and population health trends, like COVID-19 screenings and escalations. By learning from this data, Bright.md can apply best practices to constantly improve workflow, patient care and the patient experience.

More than 90% of patients who have used SmartExam intend to use the platform again, a testament to its patient-friendly approach. SmartExam has reduced low-acuity exams from a 20-minute in-person visit, which requires travel and waiting room time, to a 90-second virtual visit that can be conducted from anywhere - home, the office, a car or even bed.

"In this market, great companies will continue to get funded," said Dino Vendetti, managing partner at Seven Peaks Ventures. "Three of the top five not-for-profit health systems in the U.S. use SmartExam for patients seeking convenient urgent and primary care online, and there's plenty of room for growth. We expect these numbers will continue to skyrocket. COVID-19 has turned the spotlight on how effective technology can be in helping providers efficiently deliver high-quality care. This is the future of healthcare delivery, and Bright.md has proven its approach is the most efficient and scalable."

Karen Page Joins Board
The company also announced today that B Capital General Partner Karen Page has joined its board of directors. Page brings a wealth of enterprise, growth stage leadership and operating expertise to the board, with past executive roles at Box and Apple.

"The Bright.md team continues to find new ways to help its health system partners provide highly responsive care," said Page. "When coronavirus struck in January, Bright.md responded immediately with a new, free, comprehensive COVID-19 screening tool based on Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) guidelines. The company's keen, nimble ability to adapt to the needs of health systems has helped them deliver an excellent patient experience and increased provider efficiency. That truly sets Bright.md apart from anything else in the market."

About Bright.md
Founded in 2014 and based in Portland, Oregon, Bright.md is a leading healthcare automation company dedicated to modernizing direct-to-patient telehealth for healthcare systems with its AI-powered virtual-care platform, SmartExam. Bright.md partners with premier healthcare organizations in North America, including three of the top five not-for-profit health systems and five of the top 10 health systems in the United States. These partners offer SmartExam to more than 10 million patients who are seeking convenient urgent and primary care online. Bright.md has been named a Gartner Cool Vendor in Healthcare, a Vendor to Watch by Chilmark Research, and is the preferred choice of AVIA's Virtual Access cohort. Bright.md is venture-backed by B Capital Group, Seven Peaks Ventures, Pritzker Group Venture Capital, Oregon Venture Fund and the Stanford-StartX Fund. For more information, visit Bright.md.