For years, Sammy Faycurry heard from his mother and sister, a registered dietitian (RD), about how many Americans were eating poorly and had trouble giving dietary advice.
Although almost half of all adults in the country suffer from chronic diseases related to an unhealthy weight loss program, health plans cover a limited number of dietitians registered in the network.
Faycurry set out to build a platform that will enable people with rare diseases, like his mother and sister, to start out their very own practice under insurance.
He began working Fairystartup connecting medical specialists with insurers and patients while he was an MBA student at Harvard Business School in 2021. After about a 12 months of work, which was initially initiated by Faycurry, he asked Marek Stefański to hitch him as CTO.
On Wednesday, Fay got here out of hiding after quietly raising $25 million from General Catalyst and Forerunner Ventures, with participation from 1984 and the founders of Grow Therapy and Maven Clinic.
Fay offers rarefied physicians a franchise model that has gained popularity among certain types of health care providers in recent years. The so-called business-in-box gives practitioners corresponding to dietitians and therapists the tools to run their practices, including filing insurance claims, receiving payments and matching patients.
“Insurance companies love it because their patients get healthier. And dietitians love it because with our platform they can make almost five to eight times more money as independent physicians than they make in a hospital setting,” Faycurry told TechCrunch.
Other startups that have implemented this business model include: Growa network of therapists that last month raised $88 million in a Series C round led by Sequoia and Nourish, which, like Fay, connects medical specialists with patients. Feed closed its $35 million Series A round in March led by Index Ventures.
Fay currently has 1,000 RD on its platform and allows people with Anthem, UnitedHealthcare, Aetna CVS, Blue Cross, Cigna, Optum, Humana and other insurers to make use of their services weekly or bi-weekly for a regular co-pay price.
“Costs for payers and employers have been rising rapidly for a very long time. Everyone says weight loss program, weight loss program, weight loss program and then no one does anything about it,” Faycurry said.
Interestingly, many of Fay’s patients are people taking Ozempic and other GLP-1 drugs that are now being touted as miracle weight reduction drugs. This is because doctors who prescribe these drugs require patients to see a dietitian to learn healthy habits. “We’ve seen people lose 25 pounds but still have high cholesterol because they ate a piece of bacon with every meal,” Faycurry said.
Nicole Johnson, partner at Forerunner Ventures, said her firm was impressed with Fay’s execution. “They started really fast and grew revenue at an incredibly fast rate while burning very little capital.” Johnson said Fay has big plans for future expansion into providing food to patients.