We're excited to announce we have raised a A$60m Series C round of funding, lead by US venture capital firm BOND. Our existing investors in Blackbird, NewView, W23, Airtree, OneVentures & Athletic Ventures have also joined us again as we build the future of digital, patient-centric healthcare.
BOND's combined investment record speaks for itself; Airbnb, Stripe, Block, Slack and Canva among others. But the most important element of investor fit is experience in your space and conviction in the idea. From the first meeting with Noah and Jesse from BOND we knew we were working with a firm that believed that our model could change lives globally.
3 years into the journey
Though we've been building since 2019, telehealth has truly been thrust into the global spotlight over the last two years.
We’ve seen patients and practitioners across the globe rush to adopt tools that allow them to diagnose, prescribe and deliver treatments in a world where in-person medicine has become reserved for hospital environments.
Patients across the world have seen significant benefits from this shift, with increased access to care when they need it. Practitioners have benefited from simplified scheduling and follow-up.
At Eucalyptus we are proud to have played a small part in this, handling over 500,000 consults across our five brands in Pilot, Kin, Software, Normal and Juniper.
Yet as we look at the state of telehealth, we believe we are really only scratching the surface of what is possible.
So what are we building?
In short: high touch, high quality digital healthcare experiences.
It's more than video consults
Much like the Zoom meeting was the first step into a new mode of working, the shift of GP consults onto video calls was very much the basic replication of an in-person experience in the digital world. It will be looked back on as a very 'day one' version of a global shift to a digital-first mode for patient care.
At Eucalyptus, we believe that high touch, high quality interactions with connected practitioners from across medical fields are the key to helping patients manage chronic conditions, and eradicating avoidable lifestyle diseases.
A platform with the patient at heart
Our roadmap will continue to build on the Eucalyptus healthcare platform that:
- Makes it simple and affordable for medical practitioners to connect, communicate with, monitor and manage patients asynchronously
- Allow patients to connect with a variety of practitioners from across medical fields through a single point of interaction.
- Allow patients to connect with care providers and receive treatments where and when they need.
- Allow patients to record efficacy, side effects & behavioural changes during treatment and share back with practitioners
Going after chronic conditions
If these things are built in a way that is intuitive and accessible for patients and practitioners, then we can change the way that conditions such as obesity, heart disease, and mental health are managed. This would make a noticeable impact in the life of the average person here in Australia, and around the world.
An end-to-end patient experience
When we talk about a digital first end-to-end patient experience, we need to rethink and rebuild every part of the patient experience.
Discovery phase – AKA Dr. Google
Before the internet, the healthcare system controlled information and kept patients in the dark about the majority of minor conditions until something was significant enough to need medical attention. This was often a necessity.
Patients now have the world of information – and more of their own health data – at their fingertips.
So increasingly, the role of primary care is to meet the patient earlier in their search. We do this with information about things that are impacting them, that is simple, trustworthy and well-designed.
Triage phase – helping doctors reduce admin load
Once the patient starts their journey with us, we ingest patient information from surveys. Use of structured data lifts the administrative load off the doctors, reducing cost for the patient, while increasing the detail of information passed to the doctors.
Our approach to triage helps us split the clinical responsibilities by health condition. This allows practitioners to provide a better experience to patients – more specialised knowledge of that area of health (like contraception, or menopause).
Consultation phase – supercharging practitioners
The consultation needs to become a more accessible, flexible experience. We have seen shifts from an in-clinic model to a largely video-driven model, but what is next?
The asynchronous nature of the consults means both patient and practitioner can take the time to go deep, at moments in the day that are convenient for both.
Over time, we build a profile that presents patient data back to the patient (and practitioner) in a simple, actionable way. We’ve also begun building integrations (i.e. pathology) that will deepen these insights and signal disease earlier.
An integrated journey – better continuity of care
The argument often levelled against the digitisation of primary care is that it breaks continuity with a regular GP.
The reality is that increasing continuity is the single biggest advantage of a digital care model.
The ability to – within a single platform – collect data, meet with practitioners, receive medications, track results and follow-up with the same (or new) practitioners is a level of care that the health system has aspired to. But a system like this has been impossible, due to conflicting priorities and fragmentation between parts of the healthcare system.
This also massively improves adherence to (and success) of the treatment, especially in complex conditions that rely on ongoing management (i.e. dermatology, obesity & mental health).
Growing the team to go global
The team we have assembled gives us conviction that Eucalyptus is capable of going beyond Australia to impact healthcare globally.
When we started Eucalyptus, Alexey, Charlie, Benny and I could never have imagined the incredible collection of engineers, medical advisors, designers, creatives and operations specialists that would choose to spend their time working on bringing Eucalyptus to life.
We are continually blown away by the work you all do, and can’t wait to see what you build with this capital.
Does B2C consumer health sound like your thing?
Join us! We are hiring across every team in the business – check out the open roles.