Telehealth service that caters to the healthcare needs of women Maven has launched out of beta with $2.2 million in seed funding. According to TechCrunch’s report, the funds were provided by Great Oaks Venture Capital, BoxGroup, F Cubed, as well as several angels including WordPress founder Matt Mullenweg, former Gilt Groupe and AOL exec Susan Lyne, and Gerson founder Thomas Lehrman.
The company founder itself Kate Ryder was working as a VC at Index Ventures so we’re expecting her to be able to easily raise additional funding if needed. In fact, she came to an idea for a digital healthcare app for women while working at Index Ventures.
“A lot of my friends started having kids, so I started doing some research. After speaking to many women in their 20s and 30s, I found that what was out there didn’t have specific focus on women’s health,” Ryder said.
Maven offers virtual visits for as low as $18 per visit.Similarly to other telehealth services, Maven allows users to post questions to doctors, browse health discussions, and book a video appointment with a health practitioner. The key difference is that Maven is focused on the needs of women, who make up the majority of healthcare decisions.
To better serve her audience, Ryder made sure she has a lot of women employees at Maven. While the company’s 10-person team is made up of half men and half women, 98% of 300+ doctors, physical therapists and nurse practitioners on the app are women.
Maven is also more affordable than competing services that target both men and women. Whereas Doctor on Demand charges $40 per virtual visit, HealthTap from $44 a visit to $99 per month – Maven’s service can be ordered for as low as $18 per visit.
Right now, the service is mainly focused on healthcare topics for women of childbearing age. This includes trouble conceiving, pregnancy and postpartum issues such as lactation, pelvic rehabilitation and depression. The Glow and Glow Nurture apps are competing in the same space, but for the time being, these two apps don’t offer virtual visits.
Looking into the future, Maven will eventually connect with other services to pull in vital data, as well as add support for other diseases and conditions.