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Seattle-based 98point6 announced a $118 million Series E on October 15, 2020, led by L Catterton’s Growth Fund and Activant Capital, with existing investors including Goldman Sachs also participating. The company said the round brought its total funding to $247 million. Its text-first virtual primary-care service was gaining attention as patients sought medical advice without visiting clinics during the COVID-19 pandemic—but the funding announcement was not proof of profitability, clinical superiority or permanently higher demand.
What 98point6 raised—and what the round meant
The Series E was reported as an equity financing. 98point6 did not disclose an updated valuation, so the $118 million should not be read as evidence of any particular company value. The total of $247 million was the funding figure reported after the round, not the amount raised in this transaction alone. The company had announced a separate $43 million Series D in April 2020. GeekWire’s contemporaneous report covered the round, investors and company figures.
Investors were backing a business that paired virtual access to physicians with software intended to make primary-care interactions more efficient. The pandemic made that proposition more urgent, but it did not create the company or its distribution network from scratch.
How the 2020 service worked
98point6 was not merely an automated symptom checker. Patients used a secure, text-based experience that could include messaging and images. AI-assisted intake and automated workflows supported the interaction, while physicians handled clinical care: patients could connect with doctors for appropriate primary-care concerns, receive diagnosis and treatment, or be advised to seek in-person care when remote assessment was not suitable.
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That distinction matters. The company’s pitch was that technology could support clinicians and streamline parts of the process—not that an algorithm replaced a physician. A text-first encounter can be convenient for some questions, but it cannot reliably substitute for every physical examination, vital-sign check, test, procedure or emergency response. Symptoms that are urgent, difficult to explain remotely, or require hands-on evaluation call for in-person or emergency care.
In its 2020 positioning, 98point6 said its service was available in all 50 states. That is a historical description of the offering at the time, not a statement about current consumer availability.
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Why the pandemic boosted interest
COVID-19 gave patients a reason to seek advice while avoiding unnecessary trips to clinics, where they might encounter contagious illness or expose others. 98point6 added coronavirus-screening questions to its app in late January 2020, according to the contemporary coverage. As employers and health plans reconsidered how members could reach care remotely, virtual services also became more visible to potential institutional customers.
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The company reported that its membership base grew 274% during 2020. In another contemporary account, the company described growth as close to 300% over a matter of months. Its CEO said more than half of visits in a given month came from repeat customers. These figures were company- or publication-reported metrics; they were not independently audited measures of unique patients treated, completed visits or recurring revenue. The company also said more than 3 million patients had access to the service and that it had more than 50 core physicians handling hundreds of inquiries a day. “Access” should not be confused with active use or treatment.
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Demand was one part of the financing story, not the only cause. 98point6 already had employer and health-plan relationships, and its text-first model was designed around quick remote interactions. A retail partnership with Sam’s Club, announced shortly before the funding news and rolling out nationally in 2020, offered another route to potential users. Contemporary reporting also named Boeing, health plans, health systems and employers among its customers; those relationships should not be taken to mean identical contract terms or usage across each organization.
The wider market was unusually receptive to digital health. GeekWire cited Mercom Capital Group’s estimate that global digital-health venture funding reached $10.3 billion in the first nine months of 2020, 43% above the same period a year earlier. Healthcare Dive reported that telehealth claim lines for privately insured patients rose more than 8,000% in April 2020. These figures measure different things—venture investment versus insurance claims—and do not establish the size or economics of 98point6’s market. Teladoc’s acquisition of Livongo and Amwell’s $742 million IPO were further signs of investor interest in virtual-care companies at the time.
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The business model and intended use of the money
In October 2020, reported direct-to-consumer pricing was $120 per year plus $1 per visit. That is a historical price point, not current pricing. Employer-sponsored members could have access at low or no direct cost to them, while the company also pursued contracts through employers, health plans, health systems and retail partners. That mix mattered to the growth thesis: institutional distribution could reach more people than individual subscriptions alone, although reach does not guarantee engagement or profitable contracts.
98point6 said it planned to direct the new capital mainly to research and development, engineering and hiring, expansion of its medical practice, and growth across employer, payer and retail channels. CEO Robbie Cape argued that technology investment could enable rapid expansion without a proportional increase in staffing. That was management’s operating thesis, not evidence that staffing costs fell per visit or that the company achieved attractive unit economics.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.What the growth figures did—and did not—show
A large round and rapid membership growth signal that investors saw an opportunity. They do not, on their own, demonstrate clinical outcomes, patient satisfaction, lower total costs, profitability, long-term retention or safe handling of every case. The 2020 announcement did not establish those results, and the company did not disclose a valuation with the round.
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There were also practical limits to the pandemic-era growth opportunity. Insurers temporarily waived cost-sharing for some virtual visits during the emergency period. Whether those policies would continue affected what patients paid and how attractive remote care might be after the crisis. Telehealth use later fell from its early-pandemic peak, even as it remained above pre-pandemic levels in research cited by GeekWire. Consequently, a surge in pandemic-era usage could not simply be projected forward as a permanent growth rate.
Adoption also depended on trust, privacy and usability. Contemporary coverage identified privacy and security concerns, user friction and difficulty integrating digital tools into clinical workflows as challenges facing the sector. For a provider or payer, a product’s commercial promise depends not just on how many people can access it, but on whether patients use it, clinicians can fit it into care, and the economics work after implementation and staffing costs.
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The 2020 headline describes a virtual primary-care provider, but it is not a complete description of the company today. In March 2023, 98point6 announced the planned sale of its care-delivery division and affiliated physician group to Transcarent. The remaining business relaunched as 98point6 Technologies, focused on licensing virtual-care software to healthcare organizations. Its current About Us page says it is no longer affiliated with a virtual clinic; the company’s 2023 announcement describes the transition.
The change reframes the original bet. 98point6 moved from directly delivering care to providing technology that organizations can use in their own virtual-care operations. The company later announced an asynchronous-care module and acquisition of remaining Bright.md assets. That later direction does not prove that software licensing is a more successful business; it does show why the 2020 raise should be understood as a moment in a changing digital-health strategy rather than a permanent snapshot of the company.
Bottom line
98point6’s $118 million Series E captured the collision of a pre-existing virtual-care business model with extraordinary pandemic demand and investor interest. Its reported growth, enterprise relationships and technology-efficiency thesis made a compelling case for expansion, but the announcement alone could not answer whether the model would deliver durable utilization, quality or economics after emergency conditions eased. The company’s later sale of care delivery and shift to software licensing underscores the distinction between the enduring promise of virtual-care infrastructure and the harder question of who should operate the care itself.
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