VC Powerhouses Ponder Bigger Home Care Push

Venture capital powerhouses GV, General Catalyst and Andreessen Horowitz are paying close attention to the home-based care space, betting that health care will continue its mass exodus out of hospitals, skilled nursing facilities (SNFs) and other facilities.

Andreessen Horowitz — which led San Francisco-based home care startup Honor’s $20 million Series A round back in 2015 — has arguably been the most active of the three major VC firms when it comes to home-based care.

But GV and General Catalyst are also starting to consider home care pushes as well, Business Insider (BI) recently reported.

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“We’ve come away pretty convinced that it’s possible to do this,” GV General Partner Krishna Yeshwant told BI, referring to the overarching shift of medical care away from hospitals into the home setting.

Formerly known as Google Ventures, GV is the venture capital investment arm of Alphabet Inc. (Nasdaq: GOOGL). GV has roughly $4.5 billion under management and about 300 active portfolio companies, including Uber and 23andMe.

While GV has been looking at companies that support the home-focused evolution of the U.S. health care system, the VC firm has not yet made any direct investments. Instead, GV is waiting to see how hospitals and health systems will respond to current trends — and whether those entities will make their own moves into the home.

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“It may make the most sense for a hospital to just do it themselves,” Krishna told BI.

That’s exactly what Intermountain Healthcare has done. In March, the Utah-based health system announced it was expanding its home-based offerings to include primary care and multiple hospital-level services, along with palliative care.

Even before the expansion, Intermountain had already teamed up with in-home care provider Lifesprk on its Homespire joint venture as well.

Meanwhile, General Catalyst is waiting to push further into the home until some of the more up-and-coming companies have proven their business model.

“This industry is still so early and nascent,” Lerner told BI, also citing the labor-intensive nature of home care as a challenge.

General Catalyst’s well-known portfolio companies include Airbnb, HubSpot and New York City-based Oscar Health, a technology-driven health care business with ambitions on the Medicare Advantage market.

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